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HYPERTENSION AND ITS ASSOCIATED MORBIDITY AMONG ELDERLY POPULATION IN NORTHERN SAUDI ARABIA

Salma Abdalla Mohamed Ali Abdalla 1 , Abdullah Khalid Almarzoqi 2 , Saud fahad abdulmajeed 2 , Ahmed Ali Alghafis 2 , Rayan Saad Almalki 3 , Mohammad Fahad AlZahrani2

Background: Certain unique health problems develop with increasing age like hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular accidents, obesity, dyslipidemia and various malignancies. Objectives: to estimate the prevalence of hypertension and its associated morbidity in elderly population of Arar city, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.Methods: Data was collected from 252 elderly participant aged 60 years and above, attending 5 randomly selected primary healthcare centers in Arar city, during the period from 1 March to 30 June 2018. Participants were selected using a systemic random sampling procedure as we take every 2nd patient. Collected data was analyzed using the SPSS program Version 22. P value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Our study found that the prevalence of hypertension among elderly population was 45.6%, it was more prevalent among females by 54.8% than males 45.2% but there was no difference significant (p=0.246). As regards relations between hypertension and age group, 63.5% of hypertensive patients were 60-70 years old, 26.1% 71- 80 years old and only 10.4% more than 81 years old ,but there was non-significant correlations (p=0.492). There were 18.3% of hypertensive patients had DM (p=0.875). As regards the BMI, the majority (47%) of hypertensive patients were obese, 29.6% underweight, 20.9% over weight and only 2.6% were normal (p=0.082). Conclusion: In Arar city, KSA, about half (45.6%) of the elderly population were hypertensive. Hypertension was more prevalent among females, in 60-70 years age group, about fifth of them were diabetics and about half of them were obese. Key words: Hypertension, associated morbidity, elderly, Northern Saudi Arabia.

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