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High blood pressure in a semi-urban community in south-south Nigeria: a community - based study
Ekanem, US; Opara, DC & Akwaowo, CD
Abstract
Background: Non communicable diseases (NCDs) are taking their toll in most low and middle income countries; incidentally,
in the same populations that are struggling to deal with communicable diseases, hence presenting a picture of "double
tragedy". Most of the researches conducted on NCDs are facility-based; often in urban locations.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of high BP in a semi-urban community in Nigeria.
Methods: It was a cross-sectional study, where all the adult residents of the community were enrolled. Data was collected
using a multi-section questionnaire, including anthropometric measurements. Data entry and analysis was done using SPSS
17.0 for windows and STATA 10.
Results:The results showed that 47.0% of the study population had a raised BP ≥140/90mmHg. At a univariate level, age,
sex, higher income, more people in the household, daily cigarette smoking, daily alcohol intake and BMI, showed increased
risk for high BP. However, sleeping for at least 8 hours a day showed protective influence against raised BP among the
participants.
In the adjusted model, only age, sex and BMI remained statistically significant with Odds Ratio (OR) of 1.04 (95%CI; 1.00,
1.08), 0.45 (95%CI; 0.22, 0.90) and 1.08(95%CI; 1.03, 1.13) respectively. The model had an area under curve of 71.9%,
Conclusions:It was concluded that there is a high prevalence of raised BP in this semi-urban community, thus the need for
intervention and preventive services to curb the looming epidemic of hypertension in this community in particular, and
Nigeria as a whole, cannot be overemphasized.
Keywords
High BP, BMI, prevalence.
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