| dc.description.abstract | Introduction. Hypertension is a disease of global health importance and affects one third of the
world’s population. Its burden is on the increase especially in Low and middle-income countries
as compared to high income countries and most of the patients are undiagnosed. Its increase has
been associated it with several factors, including both modifiable and non-modifiable factors.
Objective. To determine the prevalence of hypertension and its associated risk factors among
Makerere University teaching staff.
Method. This was a cross-sectional study where self-administered questionnaires were used to
collect subjective data from 141 participants. Objective data was obtained by measuring the
participants’ blood pressure, body weight and body height. Systematic sampling was used. The
data was entered into SPSS for analysis. Binary logistic regression and multi-variate analysis were
done.
Results. The prevalence of hypertension was found to be 26.2%. The factors significantly
associated with hypertension include a family history of hypertension (AOR 3.25, CI-1.34-7.89),
a family history of diabetes (AOR-3.06, CI-1.14-8.18), and obesity (AOR-5.13, CI-1.93-13.65).
Conclusion. The prevalence of hypertension among Makerere University teaching staff is high.
Majority of the staff are physically inactive and most of them are overweight.
Recommendation. According to our findings, we recommend that Makerere University teaching
staff start doing physical exercises. The University administrators should also set up facilities for
physical exercise and provide blood pressure monitoring machines to University colleges. | en_US |
