Prevalence and Risk Factors of Hypertension Among Adults in Nagarjun Municipality of Kathamandu District

Hypertension plays a persistent role in the causation of coronary heart disease, stroke, and vascular problems. Many factors like dietary, behavioral, psychological, environmental, genetic, etc have a direct or indirect influence on hypertension. The available evidences shows a higher prevalence of hypertension in Nepal. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and risk factors associated with hypertension among adults of Nagarjun Municipality. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among adults of age 18 and above in Nagarjun municipality. A structured questionnaire was used to assess the risk factors and observation was done to determine blood pressure and anthropometric measurement. The data were entered and analyzed by (SPSS) software version 20. Chi-square test was used to identify the association. The overall prevalence of hypertension was 22.8% and prehypertension was 14.5%. More males were found to have hypertension (28.09%) compared to females (16.67%). Age, sex, religion, socio-economic status, ciggrate smoking, alcohol consumption, BMI, diabetes, family history of hypertension and cardio vascular disease was found to be significantly associated with hypertension. The preventive and intervention measures should be adopted to reduce the behavioral and biological risk factors which are directly related with the causation of hypertension.