Prevalence of and risk factors for hypertension among Makerere University teaching staff

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.