RESUMO
Introduction@#Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the major causes of premature death and disability in Fiji, accounting for 80% of mortality in the Fijian population [1]. This is the first community-based research in Fiji on knowledge, attitude, practice and barriers (KAPB) regarding lifestyle risk factors that contribute to NCDs and the impact of health promotion activities on their KAPB. This paper reports on baseline demographics and KAPB findings. Paper 2 will report on the impact of health promotion activities on KAPB.@*Methods@#This is a prospective questionnaire based survey in 30 randomly selected communities located in Ba Province, Fiji, conducted between May 2016 and April 2018.@*Results@#There were 952 participants with mean age was 43.2years (SD=15.4) range 18 to 83; 63.4% were iTaukei, 35.8% were Fijians of Indian Descent (FID) and 0.7% ‘Others’ and 70% were females. There was high awareness that smoking (94.3%), alcohol abuse (82.8%), kava abuse (72.6%), high salt intake (94.3%) and physical inactivity (97.9%) were not good for health. However, in-depth knowledge of effects of these risk factors was low, with only around 20% having a good knowledge. For attitude, 52.6% disagreed and 41.4% were neutral to smoking, 89.9% disagreed with alcohol abuse, 79% disagreed with Kava abuse, 84% agreed with low salt intake, and 84.6% agreed with being physically active. As for practice, 20.7%of participants were current smokers, 20.6% drank alcohol, 37.9% drank kava, 30.5% added extra salt to food, and 30.1% were physically inactive. Having good knowledge did not significantly decrease practice of smoking, alcohol or kava use. Addiction was the major reported barrier to cessation of smoking (60.2%), alcohol abuse (46%) and kava abuse (34.2%) whereas, ‘unwilling to change’ for good nutrition (51.6%) and ‘laziness’ for physical activity (43%).@*Conclusion@#The awareness of the various NCD lifestyle risk factors is high with poor in-depth knowledge of their impact on NCDs. Unfortunately having good knowledge and appropriate attitude did not translate to decreases in risky lifestyle practices.
