KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE TOWARDS DYSLIPIDEMIA AMONG PATIENTS ATTENDING PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CENTERS, ABHA CITY, SAUDI ARABIA.

Background:- Dyslipidemia has become noticeable in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), given the improvement of the economic status and accompanied socio-demographic, nutritional, and lifestyle changes in late decades together with a decreased burden of infectious diseases. Objectives: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of adult patients attending primary health care centers in Abha city regarding dyslipidemia Subjects and methods:- A cross-sectional study was conducted at primary health care centers in Abha City. There are 10 recognized centers at the time of the study.All adult Saudi patients (males and females), attending the centers, throughout the period of study conduction (August-September, 2016) were eligible for study inclusion. A simple random technique was applied to select 4 primary health care centers. A representative sample was chosen. A data-collection questionnaire was used included personal characteristics, knowledge about dyslipidemia, attitude toward dyslipidemia and its preventive measures. Results:- The study included 361 adult Saudi patients. Their age ranged between 18 and 83 years with a mean (±SD) of 36.4 (±14.9) years. Females represent 60.4%. Their main source of information about dyslipidemia were physicians/nurses (30.1%), internet (27.8%) and media (24.8%). Overall, 77.3% of the participants had poor knowledge about dyslipidemia.Educational level, job status and source of information were significantly associated with good knowledge. Negative attitude towards dyslipidemia and its management was reported by 47.4% of the participants. Patients with high educational level were more likely to have positive attitude toward dyslipidemia and its management compared to illiterates (80% versus 23.5%), p=0.012. Regarding job status, medical professionals were more likely to have positive attitude toward dyslipidemia and its management as opposed to retired participants (77.5% versus 38.2%), p=0.019. Participants who had good dyslipidemia knowledge expressed positive attitude towards dyslipidemia and its management compared to those who had poor knowledge (67.1% versus 48.6%), p=0.003. More than half of the participants checked their body weight within a month (56.5%) whereas 34.3% measured their lipid profile within one year. Good compliance with balanced diet was reported by only 9.1% of the respondents. Conclusion:- Knowledge about, attitude towards and practicing related to dyslypidemia were inadequate among adult Saudi patients attending primary health care centers in Abha. The causes of this gap between knowledge, attitude and practice need to be identified and intervened.