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Awareness of stroke, its warning signs, and risk factors in the community: A study from the urban population of Benin City, Nigeria

Background: Stroke is increasingly a major cause of mortality and morbidity in Nigeria. Studies in Nigeria regarding public awareness of stroke are few and mainly hospital based. Objectives: This study was designed to assess the level of public awareness of stroke, its warning signs, and risk factors in the urban population of Benin City, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study carried out in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. Participants were recruited randomly in public places and interviewed face to face with a questionnaire to determine their demographics, knowledge of stroke, its warning signs, and risk factor with source of information on stroke. Data analysis was with the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 21with a level of significance of P < 0.05. Results: Five hundred and twenty-five respondents were recruited with a median age of 42 (12.1) years. The most identified risk factor for stroke and warning sign for stroke by respondents were hypertension (93.2%) and sudden-onset loss of speech (77.3%), respectively. Faith-based settings (39.5%) were the most common sources of information about stroke while hospital settings accounted for only 12.1%. The awareness of stroke campaign 9.97 (confidence interval [CI], 5.75–17.3, P≤ 0.001) and awareness that the brain is involved in stroke 7.51 (CI, 4.11–13.72, P≤ 0.001) were significantly associated with identifying at least one warning sign of stroke. Conclusion: Awareness of stroke, its risk factors, and warning signs is good in this urban community of Benin, but the major sources of information are from faith-based settings. It is recommended that efforts should be sustained at continuous health education campaigns, and it is hoped that other avenues of information, mass media, and hospital settings should be optimized to ensure robust knowledge about stroke.