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Usefulness and limitations of self‐reports of hypertension for studying the impacting factors of hypertension in older Taiwanese
Author(s) -
Tsai Alan C.,
Liou JennChang,
Ho Bruce S.C.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.4.a576-c
Subject(s) - medicine
The study examined the usefulness and limitations of using self‐reported data to evaluate the impact of anthropometric, sociodemographic and lifestyle factors on the occurrence of hypertension in older adults. Data used for this analysis were from the 1999 “Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan”. The survey conducted in‐home, face‐to‐face, interviews on 4440 >53‐year‐old men and women in a population‐based cross‐sectional study. Results showed that the rate of “self‐reported” hypertension was 34.3%. Self‐reports revealed positive associations of hypertension with female gender, age, BMI and years of formal education, negative association with the consumption frequency of soy foods, and no association with physical activity. Interview survey could reveal only “recognized hypertension”, which was around 50% of the prevalence. It also showed that smoking and drinking were associated with underreporting of hypertensive status, and that elderly with little formal education had low self‐awareness of hypertension. These findings suggest that self‐reports have limitations as a tool in assessing the prevalence of hypertension or the impact of cigarette‐smoking, alcohol‐drinking or the level of education on hypertension status in these elderly. However, self‐reports appear useful for studying the association of hypertension with age, gender, BMI and food intake patterns. Funding for survey was provided by the government of Taiwan.