Investigating the prevalence rate of hypertension in Iranian men and women: A study of systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction: Based on the serious complications which are followed, hypertension is a common and asymptomatic health problem. This study aims to present a general statistics of the rate of the prevalence of systolic and diastolic hypertension in Iranian men and women based on the age range through the systematic review and meta-analysis method. Materials and methods: In this study of systematic review and meta-analysis, some databases such as Google Scholar, Scope.com, Magiran, Iran Medex, Medlib, Sid, and Pubmed were searched by using keywords such as hypertension, men and women, Iran, and prevalence. The first and the last published articles in this field were in 1999 and 2012, respectively. Data were combined by random effects meta-analysis model and they were analyzed by STATA11. Results: From 100 articles which were found in the searched references, 22 of them were finally analyzed. Among the selected final articles from 1999 to 2012, 96689 subjects were used in this study. The mean prevalence of hypertension was 17% (confidence coefficient of 95%, 17-17%). The prevalence rate of hypertension among the people above 20 was between 10-32% and its mean was 24% (confidence coefficient of 95%, 23-24%). The mean prevalence of hypertension among the people below 20 was 5% (confidence coefficient of 95%, 4-5%). Conclusion: In the studies done in Iran, the prevalence rate of hypertension was high. Noticing that hypertension is an important and dangerous factor for cardiovascular diseases, it is a worrying issue in Iran and it is necessary to be programmed in order to control and prevent this disease.