One in three adults suffers fromarterial hypertension in France. If this pathology is a real public health issue, awareness is still failing. High blood pressure remains a little-known subject around which many popular beliefs revolve, reveals an Ipsos poll for Quantum Genomics * published on the occasion of World High Blood Pressure Day on May 17. Thus, 54% of respondents do not know that arterial hypertension is more common than cancer or diabetes even though it is the most common cardiovascular disease in France.
Only 36% know that hypertension, in a majority of cases, does not present any symptoms.
Only 58% of French people recognize that a poor lifestyle is a risk factor.
There are also prejudices about the harmful effects of arterial hypertension when it is not controlled: only 46% of respondents know that it increases the risk ofcardio vascular accident (Stroke). 40% know that it increases the risk ofinfarction, 14% that it increases the risk of blindness and another 13% that it can promoterenal failure.
Poorly understood preventive behaviors
Badly informed about this chronic pathology, 53% of French people do not have their blood pressure checked. 21% of French people are followed for what remains the most common chronic pathology in France.
While a healthy lifestyle is the first reflex to prevent it, the French are still numerous to adopt risky behaviors. 1 in 3 French people do not practice sports and do not watch their diet; 1 in 5 French people say they drink or smoke every day.
These results are cause for concern for health professionals. : “Arterial hypertension remains more than ever a killer not only silent but also unrecognized and this despite the many awareness-raising operations carried out with the general public, notes Jacques Blacher, head of the cardiology department at Hôtel-Dieu hospital, interviewed for the study. The lack of knowledge of the French on this pathology is particularly worrying because it constitutes one of the main causes of cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative complications. “
* Study carried out by IPSOS for Quantum Genomics, from March 1 to 4, 2019, with a sample of 1,075 individuals representative of the French population aged 18 and over.
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