Abstract:

Background: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels. The estimated number of deaths due to CVD worldwide was 17.5 million in 2005 and will increase to 20 million in 2015. In the 30% of the entire worldwide burden, low- and middle-income countries have assumed 80%.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine knowledge, attitude and practices regarding modifiable risk factors of cardiovascular diseases among individual attending outpatient medical clinic at Bugando hospital in Mwanza, Tanzania.

Methodology: This is a cross sectional study involving people aged more than 18 years. The total number of 316 participants have been involved. A presented structured questionnaire has been used to determine knowledge, attitude and practices regarding modifiable risk factors for CVDs. Data has been analyzed through IBM SPSS20 computer program.

Results: The findings of this study have shown a good fair knowledge on modifiable risk factors for CVDs with high response (75%) of lack of exercise is a risk factor for CVDs followed by smoking is a risk factor (71%), attitude was good with most participants showed a positive attitude with average score of 71.87% also on assessing practice the response was low with average score of 43.5% with many items showing low result score among doing physical exercise, eating fruits and vegetables.

Conclusion: The findings of this study have shown that fair knowledge and attitude and low practice regarding modifiable risk factors for CVDs. Also, there significant association between gender, smoking and stress.