Coronary heart disease knowledge and health behaviour in student nurses

Abstract

Introduction: Coronary heart disease (CHD), a gradual build up of fatty deposits in the coronary arteries, occurs as a result of several risk factors (RFs) with 75% attributable to lifestyle choices. Accordingly, CHD prevention focuses on the three lifestyle RFs; smoking, physical activity/exercise and diet/weight management. As CHD prevention is a complex process, it adopts social cognition theories that have established knowledge as an essential component for behaviour change. Despite the widespread acceptance of CHD prevention, CHD still kills more people than any other disease accounting for 7.2 million global deaths per year and thus, there is an obvious need for prevention development. Student nurses, potential advocate for such initiatives, could effectively help make an impact on CHD through the use of health education/promotion but research has determined substantial knowledge gaps and that nurses do not practice what they preach. Aim(s): To evaluate CHD knowledge and the health behaviour (HB) of student nurses by identifying whether they have sufficient knowledge, whether they practice HBs, whether there is a relationship between the student nurses’ CHD knowledge and HB and whether the age or gender of the student nurse affects CHD knowledge and HB. Methods: Third year student nurses from Universities in the north of England were asked to complete an online CHD Knowledge and Health Behaviour Questionnaire (CHDKHBQ). CHD knowledge and HB scores were generated (0-16 and 10-29, respectively) and subsequently categorised as poor, average and good. Results: 54 third year student nurses from five Universities took part in the study. The CHD knowledge of the third year student nurses was classified as good (mean = 13) and the HB of the third year student nurses was found to be average (mean = 19). There was no significant relationship (p=0.44) between the student nurses’ CHD knowledge and HB reported. No age-related differences were established between third year student nurses straight from school education and mature students and their CHD knowledge (p=0.21) and HB (p=0.71). No CHD knowledge and gender differences occurred (p=0.51) but there was significant gender differences in relation to HB (p=0.04). Conclusion: Third year student nurses do possess a sufficient level of CHD knowledge to provide health education/promotion through CHD prevention however, do not fully practice these HBs and thus there is a requirement to development promoting HBs in nurses. This would ultimately benefit heath education/promotion as it is unlikely that individuals would take advice if the person delivering crucial CHD information contradicts this through there own behaviour. Knowing that there are gender specific differences also identifies that health education/promotion may need to develop as gender specific.