The effect of Health Education on Risk Factors of Coronary Artery Disease

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of health education program on three major risk factors of coronary heart disease including hypertension, obesity and hyperlipidemia. This study was performed on patients referred from Isfahan health clinics who had at least one of the three risk factors of coronary heart disease. The patients were randomly divided into two groups; experimental (n = 66) and control (n = 54), and 18 patients were excluded by the end of the study. A total of 102 patients (age range 28 to 77 years) remained in this study. The control and experimental groups were matched for important variables such as age, sex and education level. Data was collected by a multi sections questionnaire (including demographic variables and measuring knowledge, attitude and practice of all two groups about preventing of coronary artery disease), laboratory tests including LDL-C, HDL-C, FBS, TG, total Chol and measurement of weight, BMI and systolic blood pressure in both groups. Data were collected before and 3 months after the educational intervention. Results of the study showed a positive effect of education program on weight loss (P = 0.005), BMI (P = 0.009), systolic blood pressure (P = 0.001), TG (P = 0.001), total Chol (p = 0.001) and LDL-C. (P = 0.005) in the experimental group in comparison of the control group. But educational intervention had no significant effect on HDL level (P = 0.22). There was also a significant increase in the knowledge, attitude and practice of the experimental group in comparison with the control group after educational intervention (P = 0.001). This study showed that health education is one of the important and appropriate methods in controlling and prevention the risk factors of coronary heart disease. Since most of the changeable risk factors of coronary artery disease are related to people's lifestyle and eating habits, health education plays a major role in increasing health awareness and correcting unhealthy behaviors and promoting healthy behaviors. Keywords: Health education program, Heart disease, Risk factors, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Health educatio