Affiliations 

  • 1 University of Malaya
MyJurnal

Abstract

Objectives: To study relationship of depressive symptoms to hypertension. Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out on respondents from Kampung Awal. Hypertension was defined as self-reported or by measurement using a mercury sphymomanometer and depressive symptoms were evaluated by CES-D scale. Results: A total 103 respondents were studied. The male:female ratio was 1:1.5 with mean age of 41.8 years. Majority had formal education up to secondary school. 45% were government servant and over 95% subjects had income of RM1000 or less per each family member per month. 21.4% (n=22) self-reported to have hypertension and 7.8%(n=91) met the criteria for incident hypertension. 7.8% met the criteria for both. Mean score based on CES-D was 13.08. 32.0% subjects had depression. 54 subjects reported never experienced any strain for past 6 months and 24 reported to have 2 or more .61 subjects were overweight with mean value of BMI=26.19 kg/m2. Self-reported hypertension and incident hypertension were strongly associated with age but only selfreported hypertension was strongly associated with overweight. However, there was no significant association between hypertension with chronic strains and depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Depressive symptomatology was not associated with hypertension in this survey. Women had a significant risk in having depressive symptoms. Age =45 years & overweight were significant risks for hypertension. A prospective study will be more useful in the future to find out the association between depression and hypertension.