Prevalence of high blood pressure in Iranian adults based on the 2017 ACC/AHA guideline

Abstract

Background: : In 2017, American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) presented a new guideline for assessing blood pressure in adults. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of hypertension in Iranian adults based on ACC/AHA 2017 guideline. Methods: Data from 9801 Iranian adults (59.2 women) aged between 20-69 years were obtained from the sixth round of National Surveillance of Risk Factors of Non-Communicable Diseases (SuRFNCD) performed in 2011. Blood pressure was classified as normal, elevated blood pressure, and stage 1 and 2 hypertension using a weighted analysis and 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines. Data were presented as prevalence and 95 confidence interval (95 CI). All analyses were performed in Stata/SE 14.0. Results: Overall prevalence of hypertension in Iranian men was 52.0. Also, 32.9 (95 CI: 29.9-36.0) and 19.1 (95 CI: 16.9-21.6) of men had stage 1 and 2 hypertension, respectively. In addition, 44.3 of women had hypertension, of whom 26.3 (95 CI: 24.5 - 28.2) had stage 1 and 18.0 (95 CI: 16.1-20.1) stage 2 hypertension. Furthermore, 16.5 (95 CI: 14.4-18.9) and 9.6 (95 CI: 7.86-11.7) of men and women had elevated blood pressure, respectively. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated that adopting the 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines showed a higher prevalence of adult hypertension (48.2) in Iran. In this study, the prevalence of hypertension in men was higher than in women, which was steadily increased by age in older adults in both sexes.