Duration of the Hypertension and Prevalence of Retinopathy in Hypertensive Patients

Authors

Abstract

Objective: To determine the prevalence of hypertensive retinopathy and its severity in hypertensive patients in a tertiary care hospital of Azad Kashmir

Methods

This study was conducted in a public sector teaching hospital of AJK-Medical College between March 2019 and Feb 2020. Adult patients above the age of 18 years, with the diagnosis of hypertension were included in the study from out-patient and in-patient departments. A standard Performa was used to collect the demographic information, medical history and physical examination of patients. The age, sex, residential area, marital status, education, profession, presenting complaints, smoking and other addictions, functional status and physical activity were recorded. The measurement of Blood Pressure (BP) was performed with mercury sphygmomanometer and retinal examination was performed in a relatively dark room with ophthalmoscope

Results

 : A total of 100, hypertensive patients were enrolled in the study between the ages of 27 to 96 years. The mean age of the participants was 57 year. 55% patients were male while 45% patients were females. 23% had good control of hypertension while 77% had poor control.7% participants were monitoring their BP on daily basis, 32% weely,39% once in month while 22% never had any schedule of monitoring their Blood Pressure. The family history of hypertension was present in 61%. Overall, 85% of the participants had retinopathy. 44% had grade-I retinopathy, 40% grade-II, 4% grade-III and 2% had grade-IV retinal changes

Conclusion

 Hypertensive retinopathy is common in middle age and elderly hypertensive patients.

Keywords:

Hypertensive retinopathy, Keith Wegener classification

Published

2022/03/15