Publication:

Prevalence of hypertension among reproductive age group tribal women in Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh, India

Background Globalization brought the lifestyle & behavioural modifications and in turn increased the prevalence of life style disorders such as hypertension. According to ICMR report 2007-08, the prevalence of hypertension was varying from 17-21 % in all states with marginal rural-urban differences. At the same time, tribal communities were little affected with globalization & had low socio economic development when compared to other areas. Based on this back ground the present study was conducted with an aim to estimate the prevalence of hypertension in reproductive age group tribal women. The current study was conducted in ITDA Paderu division of Visakhapatnam district, India.

Methods It was a cross sectional observational study conducted among 214 randomly selected consented tribal women. A structured questionnaire was applied and blood pressures were measured with standardized electronic blood pressure apparatus. Joint national committee-7 classification was used to estimate the prevalence of hypertension. Data was analyzed with SPSS-21 trial version and Chi-square & correlation tests were used to test significance of results.

Results Among the study women, 40.6% belonged to prime tribe groups (PTG) & 36% of women had debts. Two fifths (40.7%) of tribal women were normotensive & another two fifths (42.1%) were in pre-hypertensive stage. Stage-1 hypertension was observed in 16.3% of study women. Non- PTGs & women with debts had significantly high prevalence of hypertension when compared to other groups.

Conclusions Prevalence of HTN was more in tribal women when compared to national prevalence indicating the need of screening of blood pressures in tribal communities.