Paradigmatic age shift of Hypertension disease: A study among young adults: screening of hypertension among young adults

Introduction: hypertension is one of the major risk factors for coronary heart diseases, stroke and other cardiovascular disorders. Its global and prevalence in Indian adults is 31%. Being iceberg nature and its rule of halves, it is necessary to screen out the population for early detection and treatment. The objectives of study are to assess the magnitude of hypertension and identify various factors associated with hypertension among participants. Methodology: A cross sectional study done on attendees and patients coming to medicine OPD in a tertiary care hospital in Madhya Pradesh. The earlier diagnosed hypertensive cases were excluded from the study and 500 participants were studied. Clinical measurements and predesigned semi-structured questionnaire were used for data collection. Chi square test was applied to find association of risk factors with hypertension. Results: 21.6% of the participants were diagnosed for hypertension. The increasing age, obesity, smoking, alcoholism and daily salt intake above two teaspoonfuls had significant association with occurrence of hypertension (p ≤0.05). Conclusion: The magnitude of hypertension is increasing among adult population and has strong association with increasing age and other risk factors. So, the early diagnosis with the help of screening tools is needed. Opportunistic screening of all adults coming in contact of health system will help the pool of diagnosed cases of hypertension and help to reduce burden of complications caused by hypertension