Cardiovascular health literacy in Nepal: Increasing awareness of cardiovascular diseases is important but inadequate

Abstract

SHORT COMMUNICATION The last decade witnessed quite an upsurge in cardiovascular studies in Nepal. 1 Since the pioneering works of Dr. M.R. Pandey and his colleagues in the 1980s, there have been many population and hospital-based cardiovascular studies published or reported. Some of these publications are based on studies done in smaller geographical locations while a few are nationally representative. All these population-based studies nevertheless point towards the same direction-a high prevalence of underlying risk factors-be it biological factors such as hypertension and obesity; or the behavioural ones like tobacco and physical activity. There has been, however, not much research at the population level on biochemical risk factors such as diabetes mellitus and lipid profile. Genetic studies are thus even rarer in that sense. Another characteristic of the Nepalese cardiovascular studies so far is that they have mainly looked at the medical side of the cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), mostly at the risk factors. There are other areas that are important too but ignored so far. For example, we do not have a study exploring how a population is dealing with the cardiovascular health issues, what is the treatment seeking behaviour, the underlying sociological or cultural aspects of the disease, and so on. In lack of a policy or programmes for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), question on researches that look into the efficiency of policy or the programmes does not arise at all. Thus, studies on the social or policy dimension of cardiovascular health, which are often explored with qualitative studies and operational researches respectively, are completely absent at present. How well a population is aware of CVD, its risk factors, possible prevention and control strategies is also a critical area of research-often termed as health literacy research. Because the disease is rooted in one's lifestyle , this category of research looks into attitude and behaviour ofthe individuals as well. Only a few studies in Nepal have looked into the cardiovascular health literacy issue.Limbu and colleagues enquired a heterogenous, non-random population on heart attack symptoms and found low level of knowledge on the issue. 2 Upadhyay and colleagues too found low knowledge