In the findings of Oliveria, Chen,
McCarthy, Davis and Hill,25 the respondents
were knowledgeable about hypertension:
96% thought that people could
do things to lower their BP and the same
percentage also thought that lowering BP
would improve health. The responses in
this study were similar. Though the
overall performance on the knowledge
questions was good, there remained a
lack of knowledge concerning the specifics
of SBP and DBP which would
allow for effective self-monitoring of BP.
The prevalence of hypertension
among people of African descent,
particularly the Caribbeans, in the UK
is higher than the general population
(38.4% and 31.7% for Caribbean men
and women vs 31.7% and 29.5% for
men and women in the general population)26
and 25.3% of the study group
was hypertensive without knowing it.
Despite these findings, the general
feeling of the respondents, concerning
susceptibility to developing hypertension,
was that Blacks were neither more
or less susceptible. This perception
could be the reason that though the
participants knew that lowering BP
would improve health, many did not
know that they were hypertensive and
could improve their own health by
decreasing their BP. This disconnection
between knowledge and personal risk is
also described by Rieder.2