Prevalence and risk factors associated with prehypertension in Shunde District, southern China

Objective: To explore the prevalence and combined cardiovascular risk factors of prehypertension in southern China. Design: A retrospective study; the logistic regression model was used to find the risk factors of prehypertension. Setting: The study was conducted in Shunde District, southern China, using the community-based health check-up information. Participants: Participants aged >= 35 years with complete health check-up information data between January 2011 and December 2013 were enrolled and divided into hypertension, prehypertension and optimal blood pressure (BP) groups. Prehypertension was further divided into low-range (BP 120-129/80-84 mm Hg) and high-range (BP 130-139/85-89 mm Hg) subgroups. Outcome measures: The prevalence of prehypertension and the combined cardiovascular risk factors within the prehypertensive subgroups. Results: Of the 5362 initially reviewed cases (aged >= 35 years), 651 were excluded because of missing data. The proportions of optimal BP, prehypertension and hypertension were 39.1%, 38.6% and 22.3%, respectively. The average age, proportion of male sex, overweight, impaired fasting glucose (IFG), dyslipidaemia and hyperuricaemia were significantly higher in the prehypertension group than in the optimal BP group (all p <0.05). Compared with low-range prehypertension, the proportions of overweight, dyslipidaemia and IFG were higher in the high-range prehypertension group (all p<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that overweight (OR=2.84, 95% CI 1.55 to 5.20), male sex (OR=2.19, 95% CI 1.39 to 3.45), age (per 10 years, OR=1.21, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.44, p=0.03) and hyperuricaemia (OR=1.70, 95% CI 1.14 to 2.54) were independent risk factors of prehypertension. Conclusions: Prehypertension is highly prevalent in southern China. Prehypertensive individuals presented with many other cardiovascular risk factors. There was heterogeneity of combined risk factors within the prehypertensive subgroups.