Knowledge, attitude, practice, and associated burdens among the hypertension patients’ caregivers in Bangladesh

Objectives:  

Caregivers of hypertensive patients have a vital role in ensuring optimal patient care as well as lowering the risk of hypertension-related consequences. Caregivers are excellent candidates for finding gaps in hypertension management. The purpose of this study was to assess caregivers' knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP), as well as their involvement in patients' care and tolerability. 

Subject and Methods:  

This multicentric descriptive cross-sectional study was undertaken at six government hospitals in Bangladesh from January to June 2022. These tertiary hospitals were chosen for the snowball sampling approach to cover all eight divisions because they manage the majority of the country's patient influx. A face-to-face interviewer-administered questionnaire, with 54 questions that included rank order scaling, Likert- like scale, and both open and close-ended questions, was prepared both in English and local language by the public health & other specialists; was used in most cases. Several caregivers were interviewed via phone. One-way ANOVA, Independent-Samples T-Test, and Chi-Square test were used to analyze the data. 

Results:   

Education, personal history of hypertension, domicile, age, relationship with the patient, occupation, duration of caregiving, and other factors were found to be substantially linked with KAP scores in caregivers. The caregivers' percent scores for general knowledge, attitude, and practice were 54.83 ± 17.95, 47.95 ± 24.05, and 61.26 ± 17.50, respectively. Those who aged > 26 years & had secondary level education or lower faced the burdens at a higher level. The daughter/son as the caregivers showed better KAP percent scores than the spouse. Male caregivers were more likely to report not being tired (65.4%) and having an economic burden (56.6%). Significant correlations were discovered between the loads and the amount of time spent on caregiving each day. Overall, the participants were not found to be overburdened by their responsibilities as caregivers. At least P-value <0.05 was considered significant in all cases. 

Conclusions: 

Our study attempted to reduce the research gap in this area, which may assist to prevent emergencies by increasing awareness and assuring good attitude & practice.