Blood pressure, hypertension and correlates in urbanised workers in Ibadan, Nigeria: a revisit

To provide an update on blood pressure (BP) levels and hypertension correla tes in urban workers in Ibadan, Nigeria, we administered a questionnaire to , and measured the BP in, 608 men and 309 women, age range 18-64 years. Sys tolic BP (SBP) rose in men and women after the age of 25, but the rise in d iastolic BP (DBP) started earlier dropping in women only after the age of 4 4. SEP and DBP were higher in men than women (P < 0.001). The prevalence of hypertension was 9.3% in the population, being 10.4% in men and 7.1% in wo men; age-adjusted rates were 9.8% and 8.0% respectively. The prevalence of hypertension increased with age in both genders. Body mass index was correl ated to SEP (r = 0.142, P = 0.022) and DBP (r = 0.149, P = 0.032) in men, a nd with SEP (r = 0.1501, P = 0.013) and DBP (r = 0.1569, P = 0.0085) in wom en. BP was correlated to years of education (P < 0.001) and income (P ( 0.0 01) in men, but not in women. Regular and moderate alcohol consumption was associated with hypertension (chi(2) = 4.8, P < 0.05). Awareness of BP stat us was generally low, 7.7% in men and 8.7% in women, but was significantly higher in the hypertensives than the normotensives (chi(2) = 241, P < 0.000 1). The hypertension prevalence rates are not too different from figures ob tained in the last four decades, which generally have not exceeded 15%, ins pite of the apparent influence of the modernisation indices of education an d income.