Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Structured Physical Activity in Patients with Hypertension

Background: Hypertension is a commonly prevalent non-communicable disease, associated with a sedentary lifestyle. Sufficient physical activity (PA) and lifestyle changes are essential to prevent and manage hypertension. There is less to no awareness about Physical activity in general population, which warrants the need to find the levels of Knowledge, Attitude and the Practice of Physical activity in patients with hypertension. Aim Of The Study: To identify the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Structured Physical activity in patients with hypertension. Methodology: 256 Hypertensive patients of both genders, of age 18 to 70 with a clinical history of > 10 months were included. The demographic and other basic data was obtained. The participants filled the self-developed survey-questionnaire. Based on the participants’ responses, their knowledge, attitude and practice of Structured Physical Activity were identified. Results: The knowledge about importance of physical activity in hypertension is poor in 88.6% and good in 11.4% of population. 37.1% of population had positive attitude and 62.9% had negative attitude about physical activity. Only 39.5% of population is already practicing a structured physical activity. 62.1% had low PA, 36.7% had Moderate PA and only 1.2% of population had High PA levels. Conclusion: Patients with Hypertension have a poor knowledge and majority of them have a negative attitude towards PA. Those with a good knowledge about PA, have positive attitude towards PA and are having moderate PA levels, but didn’t practice a structured PA to manage hypertension, neither do meet the recommended PA levels.