A study of patients knowledge and use of sublingual glyceryl trinitrate in Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah, Kedah

According to the statistic in our country, the rate of morbidity along with death of cardiac and blood vessel disease is quite high. This is the main cause of death in our county where a proximally about 30% of all death is causes by cardiac and blood vessel disease or well known as cardiovascular disease. From the statistic, it also showed that coronary heart disease still remain as number one killer in our country where 19% from all death since year 1996 and estimated that from every I 00 000 men, 100 of them were diagnosed with coronary heart disease.
A study was carried out to assess patient knowledge and use of sub lingual glyceryl trinitrate in Farmasi Klinik Pakar, Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah at Kedah for period of 3 month from whom met the inclusions and exclusions criteria. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 17.0 and Microsoft Office Excel version 2007.
Sixty five percents from 138 participants of this study were males. Majority of the participants were aged between 51-60 years old (32.60%) and education background of primary education level ( 68. 10% ).
Generally male is the dominant gender in this study. Mostly about 65.20% of patients knew using sublingual glyceryltrinitrate to prevent angina pain. Besides that, 97. 10% patients experienced chest pain as one of the main symptoms of angina and 97 .10% of patients knew that sub lingual glyceryltrinitrate could be used preventatively. In addition, only 26.80% of patients knew how to handle their side effect. Mostly patients had poor knowledge on steps and correctly usage of sublingual glyceryltrinitrate.
Findings indicate that patients have limited knowledge of appropriately use of sublingual glyceryltrinitrate. Therefore, health care professionals need to educate the patients to improve patients knowledge of their medicines. Hence, decreasing the total number of death cause by coronary heart disease every year can be achieved.