Primary Healthcare

Biography

Biography: Ahmad A Mirza

Abstract

Introduction: Patients’ awareness plays an important role in the early diagnosis and control of many diseases including hypertension. We aimed to estimate the level of awareness among the relatives of medical students by assessing the prevalence of undiagnosed and uncontrolled hypertension. Methods: In this cross-sectional designed study, a certain group of medical students were invited to interview their respective adult first-degree relatives for risk factors and take measurement of their blood pressure in adequate conditions. According to the absence or presence of hypertension in their history, relatives who were measured with elevated blood pressure were analyzed as undiagnosed or uncontrolled hypertension, respectively; while those who were measured with normal values of blood pressure were analyzed as normal or controlled hypertension, respectively. Comparative analysis of different parameters was carried out between these subgroups. Results: We included 770 relatives of 82 (57.7%) total students’ participations. The prevalence of undiagnosed hypertension in the total study population was 14.4% (111 cases). Among participants diagnosed previously with hypertension, 61.9% were uncontrolled at the time of the study. Predictors for undiagnosed hypertension were aged below 40, working at the present time in either governmental or private sectors, current smoking, absence of diabetes and cardiac diseases; while none of the investigated factors showed to be a significant predictor for uncontrolled hypertension. Conclusions: There is insufficient level of awareness among the family members of medical students, as demonstrated by the high prevalence of both undiagnosed and uncontrolled hypertension. The typical profile associated with the lowest awareness level is that of the young smoking employee with no history of diabetes or cardiac disease.