[Knowledge and practices regarding stroke at a university hospital: Part 1. Education of the nursing staff: priorities for the treatment of cerebral infarction].

Background And Purpose: This study was undertaken to evaluate professionals working at a university hospital as to their knowledge and attitudes towards stroke.

Methods: Individuals working in the hospital were divided in two groups, health care workers (HCW) and non-health care workers (NHCW), and further subdivided according to level of schooling, resulting in seven strata. A closed questionnaire addressing epidemiology, risk factors, pathophysiology, typical symptoms, treatment, clinical course and personal attitudes towards smoking and blood pressure control, was applied to a random sample of each stratum (total n = 309). Kruskal-Wallis test for multiple comparisons of non-parametric data was used.

Results: Significant differences between the seven groups were found. Knowledge was strongly associated with being a HCW and with level of formal education (p < 0.001), even after excluding physicians from the analysis (p < 0.001). In NHCW groups, knowledge was not associated with level of education (p = 0.421). In these groups, personal fear of suffering a stroke was the only variable predictive of knowledge. Smoking and poor monitoring of blood pressure levels were also more common in strata with the lowest levels of education and among NHCW.

Conclusion: Poor knowledge and wrong attitudes towards stroke are frequent among individuals working in a Brazilian university hospital. Although these results are not necessarily applicable to the general population, they will certainly be useful for the development of educational programs on stroke.