High blood pressure in a professional environment in low income country: case of the moso sugar company in burundi

Aim: To determine the prevalence of high blood pressure in the Moso sugar company in East of Burundi.
Methodology: This is a cross-sectional study among workers of Moso Sugar Company from May to August 2018. Any agent of the company with high blood pressure, consenting to participate after some clarified explanations and working at least five in the company was included in our protocol. For each participant, we took three measurements of systolic and diastolic blood pressure and calculated the average that we reported. Only hypertensive patients made up our simple. Cardiovascular risk factors were also investigated.
Results: Of 535workers, 352 agreed to participate in the study and among them 96 had high blood pressure, representing a frequency of hypertension of 27.7%. The average age was 50.52 years with extremes from 28 to 61 years and a sex ratio of 2.4 in favor of men. Seventy two respondents (75%) were at stage II according the WHO classification of hypertension. Eighty one (83.3%) were simple workers and 5 (5.2%) had positions of responsibility. In addition to factors related to working conditions, the dominant cardiovascular factors were alcohol (68.7%), overweight and/or obesity (53.1%), diabetes (37.7%) and smoking (22.9%). Forty respondents (41.6%) complained of at least neurosensory signs and were at stage III of hypertsion.
Conclusion: the prevalence of high blood pressure is high in Moso Sugar Company. An awareness and care campaign is necessary in this community.