Blood Pressure and its Association with Body Mass Index Among the People Attending in a Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Systolic and diastolic hypertension has been increasing trend and different factors are associated such as body mass index, diabetes etc. Obesity and overweight are generally associated with high blood pressure. This study aims to identify the prevalence of blood pressure level and its association to body mass index among people attending in civil service hospital, Kathmandu. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among all 1002 study subjects aged above 20 years.Information were obtained from people coming for Master health check-up during study period. Blood pressure and weight weretaken by WHO certified tool. Results: Half of the respondents were overweight and obese. Prevalence of systolic and diastolic hypertension was found to be 171 (17.1%) and 310 (30.9%) respectively. There is significant difference between body mass index to sex. Females are 1.5 times more likely to have high blood pressurewho have high body mass index. Age group (40-59) years are more than two times likely to have overweight, systolic and diastolic blood pressure than other age group. Systolic blood pressure is more than six times more likely to be high in 60+ age group. But it is only 2.6 times in diastolic blood pressure and in body mass index, it is reduced to 1.4 times but it was still statistically significant. Overweight people are 1.4 and 1.6 times more likely to have high systolic and diastolic BP than another category. Conclusions: Half of the respondents were overweight and obese. Male had high overweight and obesity than female. Overweight people more likely to have high systolic and diastolic BP than others. Keywords: Body mass index; blood pressure; civil service hospital; Nepal.