Prevalence and Risk Factors of Hypertensive Retinopathy in Hypertensive Patients

Abstract

Background: Hypertensive retinopathy is one of the major complications of hypertension. Presence of hypertensive retinopathy may be an indicator of presence of other complications of hypertension, commonly nephropathy. Subjects and methods: This study was carried out in OPD of Hypertension and Research Center, Rangpur, Bangladesh. It was a cross sectional study, systemic sampling method was used to generate the sample of 384 patients. Results: Out of 313 hypertensive patients, male were found preponderance (66.1% vs. 33.9%), mean age was 51.80 years. 29.4% (92) patients had hypertensive retinopathy of different grades. Majority (14.7%) of the patient had grade 1 hypertensive retinopathy. Average time required to develop retinopathy was 6.73 years (minimum 3 month, maximum 30 years). Mean age of the patients with hypertensive retinopathy was 55.10 years. Hypertensive retinopathy was significantly higher in >50 years age than <50 years age (68.48% vs. 31.52%) (P value=0.0004779), male sex (64.1% vs. 35.9%) and higher in those with duration of hypertension more than 5 years (34.56% vs. 23.84%) (P-value=0.00000251). Other target organ damage (IHD, stroke and CKD) was more in those with retinopathy than without retinopathy patients (21.73% vs. 19.90%). Conclusion: In our study more than one fourth of the hypertensive patients had hypertensive retinopathy. Male sex, increasing age (>60 years) and longer duration of hypertension (>5 years) were positively correlated with hypertensive retinopathy.