The significance of the risk factors and the rapid diagnosis of encephalic vascular disease (EVD) is the reason for this research, where the authors decided to register and analyze the non-medical people knowledge about these risk factors and the symptoms of this group of disease. For this purpose a questionnaire with questions about these facts was applied to 500 voluntaries without pre-selection, 72.6% of them with ages between 16-35 years old, and the answers analyzed by statistical methods. The authors recognized that the risk factors has a good level of knowledge by this population (87.8 % for hypertension, 76.8 % for smoking, 70.8 % for obesity, 68.7 % for sedentary persons, 66.7 % to stress, 66.3 % to alcohol ingest, 60.7 % for fat diet, 59 % to illicit drugs) while the signs and symptoms of EVD has a minor level of knowing and correction: lost sensitivity 70.3 %, headache 64.2 %, twisted mouth 59.5 %, lost or altered speech 57.5 %, dizziness 56 %, syncope 51.7 %, amaurosis 50.3 %, disequilibrium 45 %, deafness 31.2 %, weakness 41.1 %, nervousness 20.7%, chest pain 20.2 %, fatigue 15.3 % and tinnitus 18.9 %. According this data, the authors suggest that the correction or prevention of risk factors as well the precocious medical attention by the recognition of symptoms of EVD must be the object of public health programs.
stroke; encephalic vascular disease; lay knowledge
