A survey on the awareness of and needs for health education services of the stroke patients

Objective To explore the level of awareness of and needs for health education services of the stroke patients.Methods A survey of 778 stroke patients hospitalized in departmnents of neurology in several tertiary hospitals was conducted using self-designed questionnaires.All the questionnaires were validated by reliability and validity tests before the survey.Results It was found that the patients had poor awareness of the risk factors,and common symptoms at onset of stroke,leading to poor command of knowledge of stroke prevention.It was also found that the main source of the knowledge about stroke was from the patients' relatives and friends (51.31％),only 7.59％ and 7.85％ of the patients indicated that their knowledge were from doctors' instruction and and formal health education activities,respectively.The percentages of patients who wanted to learn stroke-related knowledge by doctor's instruction or expert lectures were 68.68％ or 42.86％,respectively.Conclusions The awareness level of stroke patients of the stroke-related knowledge was generally low; health education in this regard should be well planned and strengthened. Key words: Stroke;  Awareness;  Sources of knowledge;  Needs