Study on the prevalence of hypertension and its associated factors in the elderly population

Introduction and purpose: Hypertension is an important risk factor for coronary heart diseases and the most common cause of stroke and renal failure in the elderly. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of hypertension and its associated risk factors in the e lderly of Bahar city in the province of Hamadan. Materials and Methods: This analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among older adults (more than 60 years old) of Bahar city in the province of Hamadan. Total sample of 476 elderly attending to the urban and rural health centers during March to June 2014 were enrolled. The information contained in the checklist of this study were; gender, age, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, marital status and living conditions. Findings: Our findings revealed that the prevalence of hypertension in elderly was 25% and the average systolic and diastolic blood pressure was 124.94±19.52 and 75.55±11.7 mmHg, respectively. Furthermore, after adjusting for the effect of confounders, our results indicated that elderl y at urban area had 2.19 times higher chance of having hypertension compared to rural area (P=0.002). Older people living alone had 4.51 times greater chance of having diastolic hypertension compared to the elderly who lived with spouses but, this relation ship was not significant. (P=0.077). Conclusion: The prevalence of hypertension in the elderly population of Bahar city was lower than majority of previous Iranian studies. Lifestyle of elderly could be potential risk factors for increasing systolic and diastolic blood pressure.