Publication:

Prevalence of hypertension and its associated risk factors in a sub-urban area of central Nepal

Background Burgeoning burden of non-communicable diseases (especially hypertension) along with communicable diseases has made the situation more worrying in an economically constraint countries like Nepal. Studies are therefore necessary to assess the actual burden of disease; however nominal studies have focused this situation especially in semi urban areas of Nepal. This study was therefore conducted with the main aim of assessing the prevalence of hypertension in suburban area of central Nepal and to find the associated risk factors.

Methods A cross sectional study was conducted in a sub urban area of Changunarayan municipality of Nepal utilizing consecutive convenience sampling method. A total of 240 consenting participants aged ≥18 were enrolled in the study. Data was collected using questionnaire and measurements of blood pressure, waist/hip circumference, height and weight were taken. Chi square test was used to assess the strength of relationship between the categorical variables with p value taken significant at ≤0.05.  Only values with significant association were used to obtain the Odds Ratios (OR) via binary logistic regression.

Results The prevalence of hypertension and pre-hypertension was found to be 20.4% and 35.4% respectively. Further, study illustrates the significant association (p≤0.05) of age, gender, family type, presence of co-morbidities, smoking, alcohol intake habits, habit of adding salt, BMI and waist/hip ratio with hypertension.

Conclusions Results of high prevalence of hypertension and its association with several factors indicates the necessity for timely detection, treatment and control of hypertension using various strategies.