Evaluation of Dash Diet Quality Scale and nutritional knowledge level in adult with hypertension

This research's aim is to determine the DASH diet quality score the adults and to survey nutritional knowledge levels of hypertension patients. Totally, 177 adult participated to study, of which 110 women and 67 men. It was conducted by face-to-face survey method with hypertension patients between the ages of 21-65 who applied to the internal medicine clinic of a health institution between April and October 2023. the patients participating in the study were measured with the "General Information Form", DASH diet quality was measured with the "DASH-Q" scale, and nutritional knowledge levels were measured with the "YETBİD" scale. The researcher recorded these scales through a question-answer conversation with the participant. The mean age of participating patients was 52.11±9.68 years for women and 57.09±7.11 years for men. While the mean weight and height of men was 83.16±11.78 kg and 172.91±7.43 cm, for women; it was 77.11±12.67 kg and 160.24±6.64 cm. The mean BMI that found for women was 30.15±5.44 kg/m2 and 27.80±3.51 kg/m2 for men. When the DASH-Q score of the participants were examined, it was seen that 44.6% of the participants had medium diet quality, 54.2% had low and only 1.1% had high diet quality. In the research, 12 adults were evaluated as very good in knowledge level and 28 adults were evaluated as very good in food preference according to the YETBID scale. According to Base Nutrition and Nutrition-Health Knowledge scale 5.6% of the participants were found to have poor knowledge level. In the Food Preference scale, it was detected that 11.3% of the participants had a poor food preference level. It was concluded that the majority of Hypertension patients participating in the study did not have sufficient nutritional knowledge. Hypertension disease has a high mortality and morbidity rate in terms of the risk of causing coronary heart diseases, kidney diseases and strokes. Therefore, the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension is important in order to protect and improve public health. It is essential to increase the nutritional knowledge of hypertensive individuals and to awake their awareness about the importance of nutritional treatment.