hypertension in iranian urban population, epidemiology, awareness, treatment and control

background : to assess the epidemiological characteristics of hypertensive patients in urban population of yazd, a cen­tral city in iran. methods: this cross sectional study was conducted from 2005-2006 and carried out on population aging 20-74 years. it is a part of the phase i of yazd healthy heart program that it is a community interventional study for prevention of car­diovascular disease. data obtained from questionnaires were analyzed by spss version 13. p value less than 0.05 were consid­ered significant level. results: this study comprised of 2000 participants that 847 (42.5%) were diagnosed as being hypertensive. after age ad­justment, prevalence of hypertension was 25.6% (23.3% for women and 27.5% for men ( p < 0.001). age, total cho­lesterol, ldl-cholesterol, triglyceride, fasting blood glucose, impaired glucose tolerance test, body mass index and waist were significantly higher in the hypertensive groups. 53.7% of hypertensive cases were aware of own condition, 45% were treated, and 33.9% of treated were controlled (30.7% and 35.4% in men and women re­spectively). in other word, 24% of all hypertensives (aware or unaware about own blood pressure condition) were treated and only 8% of them were controlled. men significantly had less awareness ( p < 0.001), lower tendency to take medi­cation ( p < 0.001), and less were controlled ( p = 0.046). conclusion: we understand high prevalence, low awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension and higher preva­lence of other traditional metabolic risk factors in these cases. it seems that urgent preventional studies should be con­ducted in this population.