Joint Predictors of Hypertension and Type 2 Diabetes Among Adults Under Treatment in Amhara Region (North-Western Ethiopia)

BACKGROUND: One of the chronic diseases, all over the world, due to its significant contribution to the existence of other health problems is hypertension. It is known that hypertensive patients exposed to diabetes and the reverse is also true. The objective of the current investigation was to identify joint risk factors for hypertension and type 2 diabetes for adults under treatment. METHODS: A random sample of 748 hypertensive and type 2 diabetic patients was selected. A retrospective longitudinal study was conducted with the selected patients who were receiving treatment for both hypertension and type 2 diabetes. A joint linear mixed-effect model was used for data analysis in this investigation. RESULTS: The current investigation revealed that age (β = 0.18, p-value = 0.04 for hypertension, β = 0.81, p-value = 0.02 for type 2 diabetes) and weight of patients (β = 0.52, p-value <0.01 for hypertension, β = 0.32, p-value <0.01 for type 2 diabetes) were positively and significantly associated with existence of hypertension and type 2 diabetes whereas visiting times (β = -0.08, p-value = 0.04 for hypertension, β = -0.38, p-value = 0.03 for type 2 diabetes) were negatively associated with the variables of interest. Similarly, patients who do not exercise, who smoke, and drink and patients with a family history of disease were positively associated with the existence of the variables of interest. CONCLUSION: Hypertension and diabetes are highly correlated and one is the causes of the other. Hypertensive and diabetic patients should be aware that they should stop drinking alcohol and smoking and should attend properly to their medication as prescribed by health staff. They should also be advised to undertake physical exercise to reduce risks related to these two correlated diseases.