Prevalence, awareness and control of hypertension in rural communities of Himachal Pradesh.
OBJECTIVE
There is no community based study of prevalence of hypertension from Himachal Pradesh, so we undertook this study.


RESULTS
Population based survey was done in three villages of Himachal Pradesh of different Districts. Total 1092 adults of > or =18 years of age were examined. 507 (46.42%) were males and 573 (52.47%) were females. 392 (35.89%) were found to have hypertension (39.8% in males and 33.15% in females). 267 had their blood pressure in pre-hypertensive range (24.45%). Only 433 (39.6%) had their blood pressure in normal range. 84 (21.98%) of 392 hypertensive persons were aware of their hypertensive status and only 17 of these 84 (20.23%) had their blood pressure under control.


CONCLUSIONS
Prevalence of hypertension was higher than the national average. Only one fifth of hypertensive persons were aware of their disease and only fifth of these had their blood pressure under control.
Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla-171001.
Rajeev
R
Bhardwaj
Arvind
A
Kandori
Rajeev
R
Marwah
Piyush
P
Vaidya
Bakshish
B
Singh
Pravesh
P
Dhiman
Avinash
A
Sharma
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult