[Prevalence of symptoms associated with blood pressure in normal and hypertensive population].

BACKGROUND

High blood pressure should be symptomless. However, popular knowledge attributes some symptoms such as headache, epistaxis or dizziness to high blood pressure.

AIM: To compare the prevalence of headache, epistaxis, subconjunctival hemorrhages and dizziness in people with normal or high blood pressure.

SUBJECTS AND

METHODS

A representative sample of an urban population in Chile was studied. Each subject with high blood pressure was paired with a non-related individual of the same sex and age. These subjects were interrogated about the presence of symptoms.

RESULTS

One thousand forty eight subjects with high blood pressure (481 male) and 1052 individuals with normal pressure (483 male), were studied. In subjects with high or normal blood pressure, the prevalence of headache was 22 and 21.8% respectively, epistaxis was 11.6 and 11% respectively, dizziness was 7.4 and 7.6% respectively, tinnitus was 9.1 and 9.4% respectively and subconjunctival hemorrhage was 2.9 and 3.1% respectively (p = NS).

CONCLUSIONS

No differences in the prevalence of symptoms, popularly attributed to hypertension, were observed between subjects with normal or high blood pressure.