In a study of residents of Kathmandu conducted in 2015 prevalence
of Hypertension was found to be 32.5% of the study population. This compares to a 22.6% reported in 2012-2013 in a Canadian study. More worrying is the three fold increased in
hypertension prevalence in the Kathmandu Valley in the last 25 years. This particular study linked increasing rates of obesity
and salt intake as contributing factors, although others have talked about the role of increasing population inactivity as people move from rural to urban settings.
With this disturbing trend it is vital that
the medical students graduating from Nepalese medical schools are confident in
their ability to measure blood pressure accurately and check their patients
regularly. Yesterday I observed the first
steps toward achieving that end. I
attended a Physiology Practical at Patan Academy of Health Sciences where medical
students were introduced for the first time by Jayandra-Sir to “Sphygmomanometers” for the
purposes of manually measuring blood pressure.
PAHS medical students learned how to properly
position the patient, apply the blood pressure cuffs and determine the systolic
(higher value) and diastolic pressures (lower
value).
The other half of this issue of course is the importance of addressing the education for Nepali people on prevention of Hypertension in the first place. Stay tuned for information on the development of the School of Public Health at PAHS...
References:
Prevalence and Associated Factors of Hypertension: A
Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study in Municipalities of Kathmandu, Nepal
HYPERTENSION
IS RISING IN NEPALESE COMMUNITY: EVIDENCE FROM A REPEAT CROSS‐SECTIONAL STUDY
IN RURAL KATHMANDU AFTER TWENTY‐FIVE YEARS: PP.1.16
Vaidya,
A.; Prasad Pathak, R.; Raj Pandey, M.
Journal
of Hypertension:
Saturday
Posters: Poster Session: Poster Session 01: Epidemiology
Can J Cardiol. 2016 May;32(5):687-94. doi:
10.1016/j.cjca.2015.07.734. Epub 2015 Aug 15.
Epidemiology of Hypertension in Canada: An Update.
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