Prevalence and Factors Contributing to Hypertension among Patients in Nairobi: A Case Study of Mbagathi Hospital

Abstract

Hypertension has become a major concern for public health globally. With 40% of people in the world's population suffering from hypertension, Africa ranks the highest with a prevalence of 46%. The high burden in developing countries is due to increased levels of risk factors (Sani et al., 2010). In Kenya 20-30% of the adults were said to have hypertension (Department of Non-Communicable Diseases, 2014). However, there is limited data about prevalence of high blood pressure as well as the factors that contribute to it among adult patients seeking treatment in Nairobi. The research's purpose was to give a better understanding of the factors that are associated with hypertension among patients attending Mbagathi hospital with an aim of curbing the associated risk factors in order to manage increase in hypertension. The main objective of the study was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with hypertension. Fisher’s formula was adopted for calculating the sample size in the study population and systematic random selection was applied. The study used a descriptive cross-sectional design. Data collection was done using questionnaires that included open and closed ended questions. Participants were allowed to exercise an informed consent before responding to questions. Anthropometric and blood pressure measurements were obtained using appropriate measuring instruments. The instruments used included a sphygmomanometer, stadiometer scale and a weighing-scale. Descriptive statistics mainly means and frequencies were used to analyze data. Inferences were made using chi-square statistic. P<.05 was used as the statistical significance level. The prevalence of high blood pressure was 29.3%. A prevalence of hypertension of 42.2% was found among patients with hypertensive parents. A significant relationship between family history and hypertension (P<0.05) was found using a statistical chi- square test while 69.9% of the participants had a family member who had hypertension. About 4.7% of the participants smoked while 13% were obese. Most of the respondents (60.5%) ate vegetables daily, 32.2%ate weekly while 6.8% ate occasionally. Eating vegetables was inversely related to high blood pressure. The high prevalence seen in hypertension as well as family history being an associated risk factor, calls for urgent interventions to address the high hypertension prevalence which will lead to its control. The County government of Nairobi needs to put more emphasis on intervention programs for hypertension and prioritize on factors contributing to hypertension in particular family history and age so as to bring out better from interventions in the population.