Hypertension: The Undetected Base of An Iceberg

Abstract

Introduction: Hypertension is a major public health problem due to its high proportion allaround the globe. Hypertension is a major cause of premature death worldwide. An estimated 1.28 billion adults aged 30–79 years worldwide have hypertension, most (two-thirds) living in lowand middle-income countries.

Aims And Objectives: To estimate proportion of undiagnosed hypertensive cases in >30 years age group.

Materials And Methods: A Pre-designed and semi-structured questionnaire was interviewed to the patients after taking their consent who were fulfilling the inclusion criteria, after that their blood pressure was measured using the appropriate tools. Data was entered in Microsoft excel spread sheet and analysed using R software. Chi square test and Kruskal Wallis H test was applied.

Results: The proportion of hypertension was 32.9% (male: 40.9%, female: 26.0%).Mean systolic and diastolic BP were 124.25±15.05 mmHg and 83.45±9.49 mmHg, respectively. Higher odds of being hypertensive were found in male subjects, eldest age group, married subjects, subjects of upper socioeconomic status, illiterate subjects, and retired subjects. Tobacco and alcohol consumption, overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity were also associated with hypertension.

Conclusion: Around one-third of the subjects were hypertensive and half of the study subjects were prehypertensive in this area.The awareness, treatment,and control of high blood pressure were also very low.