LEVEL OF AWARENESS OF STROKE RISK FACTORS AND WARNING SIGNS AMONG FINAL YEAR STUDENTS OF THE FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF MAIDUGURI

Stroke is the common cause of death worldwide and also the leading cause of disability worldwide, it is also the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in Nigeria, Stroke constitute enormous financial burden not only for families of patient but, also for society as a whole this study was aimed at assessing the level of awareness of risk factors and warning signs of stroke among final year students of the faculty of social science university of Maiduguri, Borno state northeastern Nigeria. Socio-demographic form developed by the researcher was used to collect participant’s demographic data, stroke awareness questionnaire (SAQ) was used obtain participants responses of stroke risk factors and warning signs, Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the socio demographic data, and the student's awareness of risk factors and warning signs. Inferential statistics of Mann Whitney U test was used to analyze the difference awareness of risk factors and warning of stroke by gender, Kruskal Wallis test was used to analyze the difference in the awareness of risk factors and warning signs of stroke by department. A total of 200 participants were recruited, 198 students participated in this study majority of the participants were males (N=122, 61%), 38% (N=76) were women. Majority of the students had good level of the awareness of stroke risk factors(85.%) and warning signs (75. speech (75.5%) was the most identified warning signs, hypertension (86.5%) are the d risk factor of stroke. There was no significant difference (p-value=0.381) in the level of awareness of risk factors, and also the level of awareness of warning signs(p-value=0.15 among final year student of the faculty of social science. There was a significant difference (p-value=0.002) in the level of awareness of stroke risk factors by departments –This study showed that there was overall good level of awareness of the risk factors and warning signs among final year student of the faculty of social science university of Maiduguri. Majority of the students identified Heard about it from a friend / family as the source of their information. Conclusion there was good level of the awareness of the risk factors and warning among final year students of the faculty of social science university of Maiduguri. Government should organize policies to enlighten the public on the Awareness and warning sign of stroke including those with educational attainment, to improve the level of awareness in the general population.