Non-communicable disease risk in female secondary school teachers of Islamabad: a baseline survey from a mixed...

Employed females such as school teachers form a particularly vulnerable and overlooked population group, in terms of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and despite their higher risk, research on female school teachers remains limited.

The current study aimed to assess NCDs related risk factors, and their knowledge in female secondary school teachers.

A cross-sectional baseline survey was conducted for a quasi-experimental mixed methods study on 130 female secondary school teachers, selected using two stage sampling, with the first stage involving purposive selection of 08 secondary federal government public schools of Islamabad, and the second stage involving simple random selection of female teachers employed at these schools. Data was collected using pre-validated questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 27. Chi-square/Fisher exact test and binary logistic regression were applied to determine associations between variables.

Out of the 130 participants, 63.8% were aged 41-45 years age group, 89.2% had a post-graduate degree, and 90% participants earned more than 150,000 PKR per month. About 38.5% consumed fruits every 3-4 days, 88.5% claimed they did not know how many servings of fruits and vegetables they consumed, and 16.2% participants said they often add salt to their foods before or while eating. About 63.8% participants said they walk for at least 30 min per day, while 31.5% spent more than 6 h while sitting or lying down. The mean BMI was reported to be 27.09 ± 4.94, mean waist circumference (WC) was 95.01 ± 10.05, while mean WtHR was 0.88 ± 0.04. The percentage of participants with moderate level of HTN, CVDs, and DM were 61.5, 76.9, and 64.6%, respectively. Household income (p = 0.022), servings of fruits and vegetables (p < 0.001), and moderate physical activity (p = 0.041) were significantly associated with DM.

This study's findings reflected high levels of moderate NCDs knowledge, however, participants exhibited increased behavioral and anthropometric NCDs risk factors. This reflects a lack of translational knowledge despite general NCDs awareness in the target population.