Knowledge and preventive practice regarding Cardiovascular disease risk factors among undergraduate students at a higher education institution in Kajang, Selangor

Ang, Carolyn Wei San (2025) Knowledge and preventive practice regarding Cardiovascular disease risk factors among undergraduate students at a higher education institution in Kajang, Selangor. Final Year Project, UTAR.

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Abstract

Background and Objectives: With the rising burden of premature cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality among the younger population in Malaysia, understanding awareness and management of CVD risk factors is vital for developing effective, targeted intervention strategies to mitigate early atherosclerotic changes. This study was conducted to study the knowledge and preventive practice regarding cardiovascular disease risk factors among undergraduate students at a higher education institution in Kajang, Selangor. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was carried out among undergraduate students. Quota sampling method was used to recruit participants who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The instrument was a validated English version questionnaire. Data collected were entered in SPSS Statistics 27.0 for analysis. Descriptive analysis and Chi-squared test were used. The level of statistical significant was set as p-value<0.05. Results: A total of 244 undergraduate students participated in this study (50.80% male and 42.90% female) (55.70% science stream and 44.30% non-science stream). Slightly more than half (58.6%) of undergraduate students have good knowledge but less than half (42.2%) had good preventive practice. There was a significant association between knowledge and preventive practice regarding CVD risk factors and family history of CVD with knowledge on CVD risk factors. Conclusion : The study showed that slightly more than half of the undergraduate students had good knowledge regarding CVD risk factors, but worryingly more than half of the undergraduates have inadequate preventive practice regarding CVD risk factors. Knowledge is associated with preventive practice and the presence family history of CVD were linked to better knowledge. Targeted educations are needed to improve understanding in turn enhance lifestyle behaviour in reducing CVD risks factors as primary prevention of premature CVD given that knowledge can be translated into better practice. Keywords: knowledge, preventive practice, cardiovascular disease, risk factors, undergraduate students, higher education institution

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