Hypertension associated risk factors in Pakistan: A multifactorial case-control study

OBJECTIVE: To shed light on the association of age, smoking, educational status, family history, diabetes and kidney diseases with hypertension. METHODS: The case-control study was conducted at three different medical centres of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, from December 2016 to July 2017. Data from 549 hypertensive cases and 1451 normotensive controls was collected using a detailed questionnaire and through personal interviews by adopting nonprobability consecutive sampling technique. Overall 2000 adult individuals, both males and females excluding pregnant women, were the part of this study. Those with blood pressure ≥140/90mmHg and taking anti-hypertensive treatment were designated as the cases, while the rest were taken as normotensive controls. Blood pressure was measured by a physician. Multivariate logistics regression analysis was used to estimate the association of various different risk factors with hypertension. All the analysis was performed using software R 3.4.2 and SPSS 24. RESULTS: Of the 2,000 subjects, 549(27.45%) were hypertensive cases and 1451(72.55%) were normotensive controls. Mean age of the cases was 43.32�}9.7 years and it was 31.8�}10.1 years among the normotensives. Higher age, smoking, lower educational status, presence of kidney diseases, diabetes and family history of hypertension were significantly associated with hypertension (p<0.01 each). CONCLUSIONS: In Pakistani population, age, smoking, illiteracy, kidney diseases, diabetes and family history were found to be associated with hypertension.