Dietary Pattern and Prevalence of High Blood Pressure among Adult Traders in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract

High blood pressure is a diet related disease with high incidence of morbidity and mortality. Identification of its diet risk factors will inform intervention for its control. The thrust of this study was to determine the prevalence of hypertension among adult traders in Port Harcourt Local Government Area, Rivers state, Nigeria.  A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out using a structured questionnaire among randomly selected 215 men and women who were adult traders in the creek road market. Informations obtained included the socio-economic characteristics, life style characteristics and food consumption pattern of the traders in creek road market, Port Harcourt. Anthropometric indices (height and weight) were measured to determine the body mass index (BMI).  Blood pressure values were also determined and classified according to World Health organization and international society of Hypertension classification. The statistical package for social sciences was used for data analysis. More than half (53.5%) of the respondents were men and 46.5% were female. The prevalence of hypertension was 50.3% for pre-hypertensive and prevalence of stage I and stage II hypertension were 18.5% and 11.1% respectively.  Hypertension was significantly higher (P < 0.05) in the male than in female respondents.  The mean body mass index (BMI) of the respondent was 26.6% and the prevalence of overweight and obesity was 23.6% and 21.4% respectively. Conclusion: The study showed that hypertension and its associated factors, obesity and diet are still problem among the study population.  Adequate nutrition intake, physical activity should be encouraged through public education.