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Background: Hypertension is defined as a systolic blood pressure of 140 mmHg or more, or a diastolic blood pressure of 90 mmHg or more or taking anti-hypertensive medication. The clinical presentation of high blood pressure may depend upon several factors such as age, gender, severity and duration of hypertension. There is a paucity of data exploring the role hypertension duration may play in shaping the relationship between blood pressure and signs and symptoms of hypertension. To evaluate the effect of hypertension duration on relationship between blood pressure and signs and symptoms in hypertensive patients.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 250 patients, aged 18 or above, with self-reported history of hypertension and on anti-hypertensive medication. Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire whereas the blood pressure level was measured with the help of sphygmomanometer using stethoscope. Inferential analysis was performed by applying chi-square test whereas the significance level was set at 0.05.Results: The study results revealed that among patients with ≥5 years duration of hypertension headache history (P=0.021), edema (P=0.034), increased urinary frequency (P=0.031), sleep apnoea (P=0.016), palpitation (P=0.005) and confusion (p=0.021) were significantly associated with systolic whereas only increased urinary frequency (P=0.009) was significantly associated with diastolic blood pressure. Moreover, among patients with <5 years duration of hypertension vision problems (P=0.03), sleep apnoea (P=0.015) and palpitation (P=0.035) were significantly associated with systolic whereas sleep apnoea (P=0.048) and palpitation (P=0.028) were significantly associated with diastolic blood pressure.Conclusions: The study results showed that patients with higher blood pressure were more likely to have the signs and symptoms of hypertension. Also, patients with longer duration of hypertension had greater number of signs and symptoms associated with systolic hypertension.
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Background: Hypertension is estimated to affect about 40% of adults above 25 years of age globally. While many of the risk factors of hypertension are well known, such is not the case with smoking. Pertinent published literature is heterogeneous, with a dearth of relevant local data. Objectives was to study the relationship between smoking and blood pressure levels in hypertensive patients and to assess the effects of gender, age and hypertension duration on such a relationship.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on a total of 298 conveniently sampled patients, aged 18 or above, from the medical outpatient department of a secondary care hospital of Karachi. The relevant data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire whereas the blood pressure level was checked using sphygmomanometer with stethoscope. Mann Whitney U test was used for inferential analysis whereas the significance level was set at 0.05.Results: Overall, both the systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels were significantly associated with smoking history (p<0.05 for both) where they were found to be higher in smokers than in non-smokers. Furthermore, after gender, age and hypertension duration based stratifications; both the systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels were still significantly associated with smoking history in patients who were male, were ≥35 years old and had <5 years hypertension duration (p<0.05 for both) where they were again found to be higher in smokers than in non-smokers.Conclusions: The study results showed a significant association of positive smoking history with higher mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels, though after stratifying for gender, age and hypertension duration, this relationship persisted only in patients who were male, were ≥35 years old and had <5 years hypertension duration.
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Objective To investigate the relationship between duration of hypertension and cognitive function in adult hypertension patients.Methods A total of 224 subjects with normal blood pressure were enrolled in group A,and 1 296 patients with poorly controlled hypertension were further divided by the duration of hypertension into group B (≤5 years),group C (6-10 years),group D (11-20years) and group E (＞ 20 years).Face-to-face surveys were conducted in all the subjects by trained physicians using Mini-Mental-State-Examination (MMSE) and Clock-Drawing-Test (CDT).The incidences of cognitive impairment were compared among the five groups and the relationship between duration of hypertension and cognitive function were analyzed by SPSS 18.0 software.Results (1) Compared with the normotensive group,the hypertensive group performed worse in the scores of MMSE,CDTs,the memory type cognitive function and the non-memory type cognitive function (MMSE:Z =-2.585,P =0.010;C DTs:Z =-3.689,P ＜ 0.001 ; memory type cognitive function:Z =-2.718,P =0.007 ; non-memory type cognitive function:Z =-1.994,P =0.046).(2) The incidences of cognitive impairment in the five groups were 3.6％ (8/224),6.6％ (26/393),16.6％ (72/433),19.7％ (55/279) and 33.5％(64/191),respectively.(3) Compared with the group A,the cognitive function was significantly worse in the group E (MMSE:Z =61.314,P ＜ 0.001 ; CDTs:Z =44.642,P ＜ 0.001 ; memory type cognitive function:Z =35.703,P ＜ 0.001 ; non-memory type cognitive function:Z =54.440,P ＜ 0.001).Conclusions Hypertension is a risk factor for the cognitive dysfunction.The incidence of cognitive dysfunction and the severity are positively associated with the duration of hypertension.In those with hypertension over 20 years,the cognitive dysfunction occurs much more obviously.