Risk Factors of Hypertension among Security Officers of the University Of Ghana, Legon Campus

Abstract

Hypertension is the most important modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. It is a major public health problem with a high mortality rate in developing countries such as Ghana. Security officers have high prevalence of traditional risk factors as well as occupation-specific risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Traditional risk factors of cardiovascular diseases include hypertension, hyperlipidemia, metabolic syndrome, cigarette smoking, and a sedentary lifestyle. Occupation-specific risk factors include sudden physical exertion, acute and chronic psychological stress, shift work, and noise. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of hypertension and its risk factors among security officers of the University of Ghana, Legon campus. A self- administered questionnaire was used to obtain data about the security officers. The arterial blood pressure, weight and height of the security officers were checked by means of an electronic sphygmomanometer, a mechanical weighing scale with a stadiometer respectively. Data obtained was analyzed using Stata 13 SE and Excel 2010. A total of 191 security officers participated in this study. Prevalence of hypertension and prehypertension were 45 % and 37 % respectively. The mean systolic blood pressure was 135.3 mmHg (SD-22.75) while the mean diastolic blood pressure was 87.5mmHg (SD-15.41). The mean age of the participants was 43 years (SD-10.80) with 73.8 % of them being 35 years or above. The mean Body Mass Index (BMI) was 24.6 kgm-2 (SD-3.94). The mean stress score was 20.4 (SD-4.66). Statistically significant associations were found between blood pressure and age (p-value<0.05), stress score (p value<0.05), BMI (p value<0.001) and years of work (p-value<0.05). Age was significantly associated with hypertension after adjusting for other independent variables. A high prevalence of hypertension was found which was associated with the older age group, overweight/obesity, longer duration of service and having Senior Secondary School education or higher.