Awareness of Self-Care Programs in Patients with Coronary Vessels Diseases Hospitalized in the Cardiac Ward of Vase’ee Hospital in Sabzevar, Iran (2007)

Background and Purpose: Cardiovascular diseases are among the most common diseases of the century, and the victims are increasing each year. Awareness of self-care programs in patients with coronary vessels diseases can play a significant role in preventing the recurrence of heart attacks, mortality and repeated hospitalization in such patients. This study was conducted to determine the awareness of self-care programs in coronary vessels patients. Methods and Materials: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 107 patients with coronary vessels diseases who were hospitalized in Vase'ee Hospital in Sabzevar, Iran participated to fill out a researcher-made questionnaire containing demographic items and 24 questions on self-care programs; the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed using Cronbach alpha. For data analysis, chi-square, Fisher's exact test and Pearson correlation coefficient were used. Results: On the basis of findings, 68.2% of the participants had weak knowledge, and only 2.8%had good knowledge of self-care programs and the rest had average knowledge on the self-care programs. Among 72 participants with weak knowledge of self-care, 54 were not already trained. No significant relationship was found between awareness of self-care programs and history of coronary diseases. Also, there was no significant relationship between awareness of self-care programs and variables such as gender and residential area but a significant relationship existed between age and reduction of awareness of the self-care programs. Conclusion: The level of self-care awareness in patients with coronary heart disease is low; even patients with multiple hospitalizations know very little about the self-care programs.