. Nabarun Karmakar; . Kaushik Nag, Indranil Saha; . Ramanathan Parthasarathi; . Manas Patra; . Rabindranath Sinha
Volume 8, Issue 10 , October 2018, , Pages 1-6
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Hypertension is an important treatable public health problem both globally and inIndia with an increasing prevalence significantly in both urban and rural population. It ...
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BACKGROUND: Hypertension is an important treatable public health problem both globally and inIndia with an increasing prevalence significantly in both urban and rural population. It is one of theleading causes of adult mortality and morbidity, but poorly controlled hypertension remains a majorhealth problem.OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to find out awareness, treatment, and controlof hypertension among study population and association of hypertension awareness withsociodemographic factors, if any.MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted from May 2013 to April 2014 in the ruralcommunity of Singur block, West Bengal. Data were collected with respect to sociodemographiccharacteristics as well as records related to hypertension such as awareness, treatment, and controlof hypertension. Blood pressure (BP) measurement of individuals aged 20 years and above of bothsexes was done. Pearson’s Chi‑square test was performed to find out the association between thecategorical variables. SPSS 19.00 software was used for analysis.RESULTS: Nearly 48.2% of the participants were aware of their elevated BP; 47.1% of the participantswere taking pharmacological treatment, mostly allopathic and only 8.8% had their BP under control.A statistically significant association was found between age, education, and socioeconomicstatus (per capita income) with awareness of hypertension.CONCLUSION: Lack of awareness of the disease and very low rate of control of hypertensionamong those who were treated became the major issues. These findings emphasize the need fordissemination of knowledge about the disease and counseling of the patients during treatmentcontinuation.
