Perceptions of risk factors of cardiovascular disease and cardiac rehabilitation: a cross-sectional study targeting the Chinese population in the Midlands, UK.

OBJECTIVES: To find out and explore the knowledge and opinion of Chinese people on cardiovascular disease and awareness of cardiac rehabilitation. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study using 14-item bilingual (Chinese and English) questionnaires that include information on demographics, health status, cardiovascular disease related knowledge and perception, and awareness and understanding of the cardiac rehabilitation programme. SETTING: Chinese community groups in the Midlands, UK from January to April 2008. PARTICIPANTS: 436 questionnaires from Chinese adults over 18 were obtained. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Current knowledge and attitude towards cardiovascular disease and awareness of cardiac rehabilitation. RESULTS: Obesity was the most common risk factor identified by 80.7% of participants. Those originated from China had significantly less knowledge compared with subjects from other countries (p<0.001). People who have had exposure or experience of cardiac disease rated a higher risk of cardiac disease for Chinese living in the UK than people without experience. A majority (81.7%) used orthodox medicine and perceived it to be most effective against cardiac disease. Only 30% of participants were aware of cardiac rehabilitation. CONCLUSION: The coronary artery disease (CAD) risk factors of Chinese population have increased significantly in the last decade. Cardiac rehabilitation awareness was poor among the sample population of this study and language barrier is still a problem. More large studies on Chinese population assessing CAD risk should be done to provide more evidence on CAD prevention for this growing population in the Western world.

Herbal medicine: women's views, knowledge and interaction with doctors: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: There is growing concern that serious interactions are occurring between prescribed/over the counter and herbal medicines and that there is a lack of disclosure of herbal use by patients to doctors. This study explores women's perspectives about the safety of herbal remedies, herb-drug interactions and communication with doctors about herbal medicines. METHODS: Qualitative, cross-sectional study, with purposive sampling which took place in Cheshire, UK. Eighteen in depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with female herbal medicine users aged 18 years and above. RESULTS: The large majority did not inform their GPs of their use of herbal medicines. This was due to lack of physician enquiry, perception of importance and fear of a negative response. Several women were not aware that herbal remedies could interact with prescribed or over the counter medicines. Of the women who had experienced adverse effects none had reported them, believing them of low importance. CONCLUSION: The women had little knowledge about herb-drug interactions and rarely disclosed use of herbal medicines to their doctor. Doctors' communication and openness regarding herbal medicines needs to improve and there should be increased access to accurate information on herbal medicines in the public and health care domain.