Prevalence, awareness, treatment, control, and risk factors of hypertension among women: a cross-sectional study in Iran

Objectives: Hypertension (HTN) is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in women. Considering the importance of this disease for public health, this study was designed in order to determine the prevalence, awareness, treatment, control, and risk factors of HTN in the Iranian women population.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,017 residents of Isfahan, Iran.Samples were selected through multi-stage random cluster sampling in 2015-2016. Theoutcome variable was HTN, determined by measuring blood pressure in the right arm via adigital arm blood pressure monitor. Awareness, treatment, and control of HTN wereassessed by a validated and reliable researcher-developed questionnaire. Other demographicand clinical variables were assessed via a demographic questionnaire.Results: The mean± SD of age was 39.45±15.56. The mean± SD of systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure were 112.37±16.25 and 68.78±9.67 mmHg in the present study, respectively. The prevalence of diabetes, hyperlipidemia and a positive family history of HTN was 99 (9.7%), 177 (17.4%), 675(66.4%) respectively. The prevalence of HTN increased with age (p< 0.05). The prevalence of hypertension among women with different age groups 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, > =70 was 0.3%, 0.9%, 15.8%, 31.1%, 57.5%, 78.6%, respectively. The overall prevalence of HTN was 15.5% (n=158) in women. The prevalence of awareness of HTN among women with HTN was 87.3% (n=138), of whom 92.7 and 62.3% were taking medication for HTN and had controlled HTN, respectively.Conclusions: The results showed that HTN was highly prevalent in the women, especiallyin womennear the age of menopause and older women. Approximately 13% of them were unaware of their disease. Despite the high frequency of taking medication to treat HTN, it was uncontrolled in more than 37.7% of women. Health policy-makers should therefore consider appropriate preventive and therapeutic strategies for these high-risk groups.

Keywords:

Blood pressure , Epidemiology , Hypertension , Chronic diseases , Risk factors , Iran , women