The Frequency of Hypertension Crises in the Emergency Medical Service Department in Tuzla

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to evaluate a frequency and clinical presentation of hypertension crises due to age, gender, duration and seriousness at Emergency Medical Service Department of the "Dr Mustafa Šehovic" Health Care Center Tuzla. METHODS The research was conducted in the period between November 2009 and April 2010 and involved 180 examinees of both genders, aging between 30 and 80 years of age with the diagnosis of arterial hypertension. The examinees were divided into two groups: control group consisting of examinees without hypertension crisis (95 examinees) and experimental group consisting of examinees with hypertensive crisis (85 examinees). Descriptive statistical methods were used in the statistical data processing. RESULTS The research results showed that there had been significantly more female examinees than the male ones (60% vs. 40%; p=0.007). The average age of male examinees was 55.83±11.06 years of age, and the average age of female examinees was 59.41±11.97 years of age. The hypertension crisis frequency was 47.22%, where the hypertensive urgencies were statistically significantly more present than the hypertensive emergencies (16.47%vs.83.53%; p<0.0001). The largest number of experimental group examinees (28.23%) belonged to the age group of 60 to 69 years of age; urgency 26.76% and emergency 35.71%. The largest number of examinees with hypertensive crisis (49.41%) appeared in the period between 6.00 p.m. and 11.59 p.m. The largest number of emergency group examinees (69.01%) had been treated for arterial hypertension for ten years, and the examinees from the emergency group (42.86%) had been treated for 10, 11 and 20 years. The average blood pressure value at the hypertensive crisis examinees was 204.82/126.58 mmHg. CONCLUSIONS The frequency of hypertensive crises in the Emergency Medical Service Department is high and it reaches 47.22%. Hypertensive urgencies were significantly more present in terms of statistics than the hypertensive emergencies (83.53% vs. 16.47%; p<0.0001).