STUDY OF THE PREVALENCE OF HYPERTENSION IN THE URBAN POPULATION OF SABZEVAR IRAN

Background and Hypertension is a common but asymptomatic disease which is easily traced and treated. However if left untreated deadly complications and high costs of treatment should be expected. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of hypertension in the urban population of Sabzevar Iran. Methods and Materials: This deh1ive cross-sectional study was conducted on the population of urban families supported by the health centers in Sabzevar Iran. 596 cases (age 19 years or older) were selected by stratified sampling. In addition to filling out the study questionnaire the systolic and diastolic blood pressure of the cases were measured by the standard method using Alpk2 sphygmomanometer and Litman stethescope. The hypertension threshold was considered as 140/90. Frequency and percentages were used to describe the data and chi-square was used for the analysis in SPSS. The prevalence of the systolic and diastolic BP hypertensions were 21.5% and 25.8% respectively and the prevalence was higher with women rather than men (p....