Background The lifestyle changes have actually crucial importance in the optimal treatment of essential hypertension. Dietary sodium restriction is one of the main pillars of the non-pharmacological approach. The purpose of current study is to assess the nutritional knowledge of patients with essential hypertension and their adherence to the recommendation of dietary salt restriction.

Material and methods The study group included 51 patient with essential hypertension, regularly followed at the Outpatient Hypertension Clinic at the I Department of Cardiology, Interventional Electrocardiology and Hypertension, Jagiellonian University in Krakow. The cross-sectional survey questionnaire consisting of 15 questions was used to assess the nutritional knowledge of patients and their degree of adherence to the recommendation of salt restriction.

Results All patients were informed on the important role of diet in the hypertension treatment, 69% of them directly by their physician. Most of the participants in structured questions were able to correctly identify recommended low-sodium diet ingredients. In the open questions, when patients were asked to name three high-salt products and three low-salt products, correct answers were given by 73% and 47 % respondents, respectively.

Conclusions The study demonstrates that hypertensive patients have high awareness of importance of dietary treatment in hypertension. Most patients receive information from their phycisian. Despite this knowledge, most of them does not follow any diet. Patients have a sufficient knowledge about products which should be avoided in a low-sodium diet. Conversely, they demonstrate poor knowledge of the products with a low salt content.