Assess the Relationship Between Lifestyle Behaviours and Concomitant Risk Factors among Adults Attending the Medicine OPD at GIMS Teaching Hospital, Gadag

Background: Non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes mellitus are leading causes of death worldwide, strongly linked to modifiable lifestyle behavior's including smoking, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, and alcohol consumption. In Gadag district, Karnataka, the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5, 2019-21) reports that 26.9% of men and 25% of women aged ≥15 years had elevated blood pressure or were on antihypertensive medication, while 15.6% of men and 14% of women had high or very high random blood glucose or were on medication to control blood sugar. The medicine OPD at GIMS Teaching Hospital, Gadag, records a daily footfall of 250-300 adults, a majority of whom present with hypertension and diabetes mellitus, with male patients outnumbering female patients. Given this substantial patient volume and disease burden, the present study examined the correlation between lifestyle behaviour and concomitant risk factors in this hospital OPD population to guide targeted nurse-led preventive interventions. Aim: This study aims to determine correlation between lifestyle behaviors and concomitant risk factors and rule out prevalence of complications of hypertension and diabetes mellitus patients. Methods: A descriptive correlational research design was adopted. Using non-probability purposive sampling, 300 adults aged 25-50 years with known or newly diagnosed hypertension and diabetes mellitus, attending the Medicine OPD, were enrolled. Lifestyle behavior's (smoking behaviour, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, alcohol consumption) and concomitant risk factor severity (hypertension and diabetes mellitus) were assessed using a modified "The WHO STEPwise approach to noncommunicable disease risk factor surveillance (STEPSS)" tool. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, SD) and Pearson's correlation coefficient at the 0.05 level of significance. Results: Of 300 participants, 48% (n=144) had hypertension only, 32% (n=96) had diabetes mellitus only, and 20% (n=60) had both conditions concomitantly. Among lifestyle domains, physical inactivity showed the highest proportion of participants in the High-risk category (23%, n=69), followed by alcohol consumption (17%), unhealthy dietary practice (17.7%) and smoking behaviour (16.7%); 27.3% (n=82) fell into the High-risk category for overall lifestyle behaviour score. Pearson's correlation across 16 domain-specific tests showed a statistically significant positive correlation only between smoking behaviour and diabetes mellitus score among participants with diabetes mellitus only (r=0.251, p=0.014); the remaining 15 correlations were not statistically significant (p>0.05). Conclusion: Concomitant risk factors where highly prevalent among adults attending the medicine OPD, with hypertension being the most common followed by diabetes mellitus and both occurring together in a notable proportion of participants physical inactivity was the most prevalent unhealthy lifestyle behavior of the 16 correlation tests conducted, only smoking behavior showed a significant positive correlation with Diabetes Mellitus score (r= 0.251, p=0.014) All other lifestyle risk factors correlations were not significant in (P>0.05). This indicates that the link between lifestyle behavior and disease severity is specific to certain behaviors and conditions rather than uniform across all domains underscoring the need for targeted condition specific lifestyle counseling particularly smoking session in the population.