Original Research Paper

Evaluation And Comparison Of Stress Status Among Hypertensive And Normotensive Subjects

Abstract :

Hypertension is a prevalent life style disease that causes cardiovascular diseases associated mortality worldwide. Being a devastating endemic, hypertension require special emphasis to be studied for its complications and consequences. Existing literatures provide robust evidences of the disastrous effects of hypertension on psychological stress separately, but there are least evidences comparing the same between hypertensive and normotensive adults. This study mainly concentrates on the effect of hypertension on stress levels and its comparison between hypertensive and normotensive individuals. Objective: To identify the differences of stress status among hypertensive and normotensive individuals. Methods: A CASE and a CONTROL group each constituting with a sample of 44 subjects between the age group 25-65 years were recruited in the study. The stress status of the study group was assessed by the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Data were statistically analyzed using SPSS (Version 20.0). Descriptive statistics were presented as frequencies, percentages and mean S.D. Statistical differences between the stress status of case and control groups were conducted by Independent Sample T-test. Results: Majority (54.5%) of the hypertensive patients belonged to the age group of 56-65 years. The average Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) Scores of the case group were 26.686.03 and that of the control group were 10.436.57.The differences between the Average PSS scores of the case and control groups were found to be highly statistically significant (P-0.00). Conclusions: Hypertensive cases recruited for the study had moderate and high levels of stress when compared to the normotensive controls of the same age- group (25-65years).

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