Abstract
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. To determine the prevalence of high BP in a semi-urban community in Nigeria. 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. 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%. 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.
Highlights
High blood pressure (BP) is a leading cause of global burden of disease, and most of it occurs in the developing world[1]
It is expected that the prevalence of high BP that were observed with the 160/ 95mmHg cut-off would be higher if the current 140/90mmHg cut-off were to be adopted[11]
Prevalence of high BP The prevalence of high BP in this study was 47%, this is slightly higher than the 42.2% observed among a market population in Enugu in 200612, but obviously very much higher than the 18.4% and 28.2% reported from facility based studies of the prevalence of hypertension among medical admissions at UNTH, Enugu[13], and UPTH Port Harcourt[14] respectively
Summary
High blood pressure (BP) is a leading cause of global burden of disease, and most of it occurs in the developing world[1]. When selected major risk factors were assessed, the leading global risks for mortality in the world were found to be high BP (which accounted for 13% of global deaths), tobacco use (9%), high blood glucose and physical inactivity (6% each), overweight and obesity (5%) These were the risk factors for developing chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes mellitus and cancers 2. About 80% of disease burden caused by high BP was found to be borne by low and middle income countries, In Africa, hypertension is thought to be the foundation for epidemic cardiovascular diseases[5], and it had been identified as the most powerful, highly prevalent, independent, modifiable risk factor for death from heart disease and stroke at the population level[6].
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