Prevalence of hypertension, prehypertension and related factors among Under 40 years old health, medical and administrative staffs in Birjand, 2021

Prehypertension is a warning sign in young people since it is an indicator of the risk of hypertension in adulthood. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of hypertension and prehypertension, as well as their related factors, among health, medical and administrative staff in Birjand, Iran.

This is a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study carried out on 1,180 health and administrative staff under 40 years old. Data were collected through a standard World Health Organization STEP questionnaire, measuring blood pressure, as well as height and weight, by the researcher and trained interviewers. To ensure the accuracy of the measurement, the employees with hypertension and prehypertension were re-evaluated according to the JNC7 criteria two weeks later. The data were analyzed using t-test, One-Way ANOVA, Chi-square, and logistic regression in the SPSS software (version 20).

The prevalence of hypertension and prehypertension was 5.3% and 34.2%, respectively. The mean for systolic blood pressure was 114.2±11.03 mmHg. Based on logistic regression analysis, age, gender, workplace, and family history had a significant relationship with hypertension, while body mass index and socioeconomic status had a significant relationship with prehypertension (P<0.05).

This study showed that a significant percentage of employees at young ages had prehypertension; however, they were unaware of their disease due to a lack of screening and that they were asymptomatic. Therefore, this group should benefit from intervention programs to prevent and control high blood pressure among them. The findings also suggest that this issue should be considered more seriously in the staff of other departments, compared to the medical staff. Moreover, the findings indicated that obesity can also play a role in prehypertension.