Sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with anxiety in hypertensive women: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective: To verify the prevalence of anxiety and its association with sociodemographic and clinical factors in women with hypertension. Method: This is a cross-sectional study with 258 women with hypertension diagnosed for at least six months and who were treated at the hypertension outpatient clinic of a public institution dedicated to teaching, research and care in the city of São Paulo. The instrument contained sociodemographic, clinical and lifestyle data and was completed through an interview. Anxiety was assessed by the State-Trait Anxiety inventory and classified as low, moderate, high and very high. The assessment of the association between sociodemographic and clinical factors with anxiety level was performed using association tests and simple multinomial logistic regression, considering a significance level of 5%. Results: It was found that 70.5% had moderate anxiety and 19.4% had high anxiety. In the simple multinomial logistic regression, it was identified that the older the age, the greater the chance of high anxiety (p=0.01; Odds Ratio =1.09), women without a partner were more likely to have high anxiety (p=0.02, Odds Ratio =3.19), and with increasing monthly family income, the chance of high anxiety was lower (p=0.04, Odds Ratio =0.99). Conclusion: There was a high prevalence of moderate anxiety in the population studied and the absence of a partner was the factor that best explained the anxiety phenomenon. Nurses should propose interventions, especially for these people, in order to reduce this feeling.