Awareness of metabolic syndrome, prevention activities and perceived barriers in reducing health risk among teaching staff of ambo university, Ethiopia

The coronary heart disease (CHD) is a leading case of premature death and disability in developed countries. It has been projected to become a leading cause of death among developing nations by 2020. Most important modifiable risk factors of CHD are high cholesterol level, high blood pressure and cigarette smoking. Occurrence of high cholesterol and high blood pressure in a population is determined by diet, physical activity, body weight and their interplay. Metabolic syndrome is a disorder of energy utilisation and storage, diagnosed by co-occurrence of three out of five of the following medical conditions: abdominal (central) obesity, elevated blood pressure, elevated fasting plasma glucose, high serum triglycerides and low high-density cholesterol (HDL) levels. Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, particularly heart failure and diabetes. There is scarcity of studies assessing diabetes and other cardio vascular risk factors in Sub Saharan Africa including Ethiopia. There is lack of data on metabolic syndrome among the Ethiopians. Therefore, a study was conducted to assess the awareness of metabolic syndrome, prevention activities and perceived barriers in reducing health risk among teaching staff of Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia. The study was conducted among the teaching staff of Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia. In order to give equal chance for all staff being included in the sample, the different colleges in the University are considered as different strata and proportionate random sampling technique was used. In this study, the response rate was 38% i.e. 81 respondents gave their response. It was found that majority (69.10%) were normal in the BMI category. It was found that most of them were aware of the metabolic syndrome. The reason might be the educational level of the respondents. It is clearly evident from the study that most of them were not having the metabolic syndrome. Smoking is very low among this study group. Only abdominal obesity was found to be significant at 0.01 level across BMI categories. ‘Increasing physical activity’ and ‘eating more fruits and vegetables’ were the major two preventive activities followed. ‘Lack of personal motivation’ was the major barrier to health improvement. Psychological factor like ‘lack of motivation’, acting as barrier to health improvement can be changed by providing exposure to various information sources.