BACKGROUND: It is the most effective and economical method to reduce the incidence of stroke by conducting the health education concerning the etiological factors or risk factors and therapeutic knowledge of hypertension, diabetes mellitus and hyperlipidemia among the public and improving their knowledge level about the prevention and treatment of stroke.OBJECTIVE: To investigate the cognition of the knowledge concerning the prevention and treatment of stroke among the public in Dongguan area.DESIGN: A cluster sampling and simple randomized sampling survey.SETTINGS: Department of Neurology, the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University and the Department of Neurology, Affiliated Tungwah Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University.PARTICIPANTS: Between March and June in 2001, totally 2 500 cases were randomly selected by means of cluster sampling combined with simple randomized sampling from the residents and migrant populations no younger than 17 years old in the government organization, enterprises, factories of various forms, Dongguan University of Technology and senior middle schools of urban and rural Dongguan city and the administrative villages of the rural areas of Dongguan city in Guangdong province before March 2003.METHODS: The inventory was modified according to relevant literatures,including demographic data, general knowledge of stroke, and knowledge about the prevention, identification and treatment of stroke, and the pathway to obtain knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke.Each item for the knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke was marked as 1-4.5 points, and the total score was 60. There was no mark for the pathway to obtain knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke. One unit was investigated each time, and 300-600 questionnaires were sent out, 500 questionnaires were randomly handed out to the healthy physical examinees in the Tungwah Hospital.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The correct rate of answers to the questionnaire, the total score of each kind of knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke, the total score of each kind of knowledge in the subgroups, and the pathways to obtain knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke were mainly observed.RESULTS: Totally 2 320 complete and effective questionnaires were collected back. ① The average correct rate of answers to all the questions was 49.80%, and those of knowledges about identification and treatment were lower, the total score was ＜ 60% in 48.20% of the subjects. ② The level for each knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke was lower in males than in females (P ＜ 0.05), but higher in the middle-age and old groups than in the young group (P＜0.05), and it was decreased from various civil servants, free agents, workers, farmers and students in order (P＜0.05), and there was significant difference between students and free agents (P＜0.01); it was also decreased in order from higher educational level to middle and lower ones in order (P＜0.05); it was also higher in the subjects with stroke history than in those without (P ＜ 0.05). ③) After the subjects were subdivided according to gender, age, profession and educational level, the pathways to obtain knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke in order were reading newspapers and magazines,watching TV, reading handbooks about science popularization, influence from relatives and friends, promotion and education of medical staff, and the last one was the least in all the groups.CONCLUSION: The level for the knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke was lower among the public in Dongguan area during the investigation, especially the knowledges about identification and treatment, so proper measures should be adopted to further develop education on the knowledge about the prevention and treatment of stroke.