Community Based Screening for High Blood Pressure and Diabetes among Albaraha Residents, Khartoum Sudan 2022

Abstract

Abstract Background: Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and Hypertension constitutes a huge burden for low-income countries, so a screening program for identifying those at risk or at the early stages can be beneficial. The Aim of the study is to screen Albaraha residents for DM and high blood pressure. Methods: An observational descriptive cross sectional community based study, which was conducted in Khartoum state, Bahri city, Albaraha area, the population of which were Albaraha residents. A screening campaign was carried out for both DM and High blood pressure at the primary health care center at the area, between October-November 2022. A simple random sampling method was taken from individuals attending Albaraha primary health care center, whom fulfilled the inclusion criteria for this study, and a questionnaire assessing the risk/ predisposing factors was filled by all study participants. A single blood pressure reading of > 130/90 was regarded as high blood pressure and a Fasting blood glucose of > 126 mg/dl with a positive risk factor was considered to be DM. The collected data were entered into an Excel form, processed then analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23. Results: A total of 385 individuals were comprised as a sample in the study, all resides at Albaraha area in Bahri locality, most of them 47.8% aged 18–39 and only 4.9% aged more than 70 years. 52.7% of them were females and 52.5% were currently married. Most of them (57.9%) had University degree of education and 46.7% were currently employed. Only 54 of them had High fasting blood glucose and 182 had high blood pressure according to European Society of Hypertension 2023 guideline. 60% of the participant had their parent, brother, sister or their own child with a history of Diabetes and only 8.8% had no family history whatsoever of diabetes nor hypertension. People who had a positive family history of diabetes had 2 times the risk (95% CI 0.6–11.9) of having high fasting blood glucose levels compared with those who didn’t have a family history. Conclusion: This study illustrated that Community based screening for high blood pressure and high fasting blood glucose level can be carried out feasibly and it is highly effective in identifying undiagnosed diabetic and hypertensive individuals, especially in a low income country like Sudan in which the incidence of DM and hypertension are rising.