ABSTRACT

Renal disease is a growing public health problem worldwide. Knowledge about

the disease has been documented to lead to early recognition, prompt treatment

and halt progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). This study was carried

out to determine the knowledge, attitude and perception of renal disease among

adult market traders in Oko, Anambra state. The study was a cross-sectional study

and a multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 184

respondents. The result showed that 54.3% were males and 45.7% were females.

Majority (77.2%) of the traders were Igbos. The socio economic characteristics

showed that 44.6% of the respondents had secondary education and some (34.8%)

had tertiary education and 48.4% of the respondents earned Nl0,000-N29,000 per

week. Majority (82.6%) of the respondents are aware of renal diseases. However,

only few (10.3%) have good knowledge about renal diseases. It was observed that

majority (92.4%) of the respondents had a positive attitude while few (7.6%) had

a negative attitude towards the risk of getting renal diseases. Most (88%) of the

study population had a positive attitude towards the severity of renal diseases.

Furthermore, 21.7% perceived themselves to be highly susceptible to renal

diseases while 78.3% of the respondents perceived themselves to have low

susceptibility to renal diseases. More than half (57.1%) of the respondents had a

positive perception towards the severity of renal disease, majority (82.6%) have

less beneficial perception towards renal diseases. The anthropometric status of the

I. respondents showed that 46.7% are of normal weight, a little below half (42.9%)

are overweight, few (5.4%) were found to be obese while 2.7% were underweight.

However, their Waist Hip Ratio showed that 91% of the male respondents were

normal while 79.8% of the female respondents were at risk. The result further

showed that low education contributed positively to 3.5% variability in the

knowledge of the respondents. Marital status, income level and education level

significantly (p<O.05) affected susceptibility, benefits and barriers of preventive

behaviours of the respondents towards renal diseases. Despite the increased

awareness of renal diseases among the study population, their knowledge level

remained low thus appropriate and adequate knowledge may help to plan kidney

disease care and management upon diagnosis so that complication can be

minimized and quality of life can be improved.