Health Beliefs to Deal with High Blood Pressure among Primary School Teachers in Nasiriya City
Abstract
Aims: This study aimed at assess the health beliefs to deal with high blood pressure among primary school teachers in the city of Nasiriyah.
Background: People's attitudes toward hypertension and its complications are influenced by their beliefs about the condition. The health belief model (HBM), one of the earliest models to describe how to change good habits and the psychological processes that follow them, can be used to study health beliefs concerning hypertension. The expected value theory is a framework for understanding how to influence people to adopt healthy behaviors (HBM). The main assumptions of the model are that people should recognize that their unhealthy habits leave them vulnerable to unfavorable consequences (perceived susceptibility), that the severity of these negative effects can be severe (perceived severity), that there are useful techniques for prevention or control (perceived benefits), and that there are costs to adhere to healthy behavior (perceived barriers), while (work references) believe that there are cues in the environment that lead to the adoption of healthy habits and that they have the potential to engage in a healthy activity (self-efficacy).
Material and Method: a six-month cross-sectional study carried out in Nasiriyah, the Thi-Qar Governorate's capital, from November 2022 to April 2023. It contained 300 samples that were obtained by the stratified cluster sampling method from 30 different schools.
Results: The study showed that the teachers' health beliefs are distributed as follows. 4 (1.33%) did not have good health beliefs, 224 (74.66%) of the teachers had fair health beliefs, and 72 (24%) had good health beliefs. Also, some demographic characteristics showed statistically significant associations with some beliefs about high blood pressure. Such as age, educational level, and the presence of high blood pressure among teachers and their entry into courses on dealing with high blood pressure, (p. < 0.05).
Conclusion: It was found that 224 teachers (74.67%) had fair health beliefs regarding high blood pressure.
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