Abstract:
Hypertension is one of the main public health challenges in the current world including developing
countries. Despite being a main public health issue there is no current evidence on the status of
hypertension prevalence and risk factors in a health facilities/Hospital-based setup in this study
area. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the prevalence of hypertension
and risk factors among adult patients who visit the Nigst Elleni Mohammed Memorial Specialized
Hospital's outpatient department. Between February and March 2023, data was collected from 422
adult participants who were the age> 15 using a semi-structured questionnaire.
Data was analyzed on SPSS V20, where some variable was coded. Binary and multivariable
logistic regression were done and those variables on multivariable logistic regression with P values
<0.05 were considered statistically significant. The total prevalence of hypertension among the
adult patients who visited the outpatient department was (N) 24.4%. Among adult males and
females, the prevalence of hypertension was 29 (27.8%) and 74 (18.6%), respectively. Of the total
participants about 201 (47.6%) adult patients were ever tested for blood pressure before the study
time, but only 8 (3.9%) of participants were aware of their status. Of the total adult patients about
97 (22.9%) patients had a history of diabetes mellitus, among them about 56 (57.7%) had
hypertension. The prevalence of hypertension was significantly associated with occupation,
educational level, having chronic disease DM, family history of having hypertension, Khat
Chewing, cigarette smoking habit, Alcohol drinking, being overweight and dietary eating habit.
Generally, adult patients have to strive to make necessary adjustments in some factors like fatty
diet usage, and other behavioral factors, like, smoking and khat chewing.The prevalence of
hypertension was higher than the prevalence of studies conducted in Jimma and Hawassa Hospital,
where its prevalence was 13,2% and 19.7% respecivily where with similar socio-demographic
status. The awareness status about whether have hypertension or not was poor, about 96% of
patients did not know their status among those ever tested for hypertension, 201 (47.6%), before
study time.
