A Study on Hypertension among Persons Living with HIV attending ART Centers in Tamil Nadu - A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

People suffering from immunosuppressive conditions like Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) are more prone to suffer from non-communicable diseases like hypertension, which is not identified and treated at an earlier stage, can lead to significant mortality and morbidity in them. The study design was a cross-sectional study done in select Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centers in Government hospitals in Tamil Nadu during a period from 2017-2018. Data regarding their HIV status, treatment history and Body Mass Index (BMI) were recorded and Blood Pressure (BP) was recorded by using mercury sphygmomanometer using standard guidelines. Data was entered in Microsoft excel and analyzed by using SPSS version 22 software. The study population comprised of 75% males and 25% females. Mean age of study participants was 45+8.2 years and the mean BMI was 22+3.4. The prevalence of hypertension among HIV affected individuals was found to be 14.63%. According to JNC criteria, 34% were having Stage 1 hypertension and 33% had Stage 2 hypertension and only 23% were on treatment. Significant association was found between increasing age, gender, BMI and hypertension. Health education and awareness creation has to be created among HIV patients on maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle so that, obesity can be prevented or reduced which could play an important role in NCD’s like hypertension and also hypertensive patients have to be identified and treated at early stage to reduce the morbidity and mortality.