Ethiopian university students' knowledge and perception towards cardiovascular disease risk factors: a cross sectional study

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the commonest cause of morbidity and mortality with an estimation of 17.9 million deaths worldwide annually. Knowledge about the disease and risk factors changes individuals' health attitudes, behaviors and lifestyle practices. We assessed the knowledge and perception of University students towards CVD risk factors. A cross-sectional survey was done on undergraduate students at University of Gondar, Ethiopia. We stratified sampled students based on their colleges and then used convenience sampling technique to pick up study participants from each college. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. Descriptive statistics were used to describe frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviations of variables. Presence of association between independent and dependent variables was examined using logistic regression analysis. A P-value of < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Four hundred twenty-three students with a mean age of 22.07 ± 2.17 participated. Majority of them were male 279 (66.0%). Nearly one third (32.2%) of study subjects had good knowledge on CVD risk factors. More than 75% of study participants disagreed with ideas relating them to susceptibility towards CVD. Students from the college of medicine and health sciences were 2.6 times more knowledgeable about CVD risk factors than students from other colleges (P = 0.024). Similarly, students from college of medicine and health sciences perceived 2.3 times more positive towards severity of CVD than students from other colleges (P = 0.027). Students at University of Gondar were poorly knowledgeable about CVD risk factors and they perceive that they are not at risk of CVD. Educational intervention is needed to improve their knowledge.