Abstract:
Background: Depression is one the most common chronic mental illnesses causing huge burden
worldwide. When it occurs with hypertension it leads to non adherence to antihypertensive medications
and life style modification. In addition to this it can result in complication of hypertension, increased
health service utilization, functional disability and poor quality of life.
Objectives: To assess the prevalence and associated factors of depression among patients with
hypertension attending follow up treatment at Jimma University Medical Center (JUMC), Jimma,
southwest Ethiopia, 2019.
Methods: A hospital based cross sectional study design was employed. Data was collected by
interviewer administered pre-tested and structured questionnaire from 344 consecutively selected
patients with hypertension attending follow up treatment at JUMC. Depression status was assessed by
using patient Health questionnaires-9(PHQ-9). Data was entered into Epi data version 3.1 and
exported to Statistical Package for Social Sience version 22(SPSS 22.0) for analysis. Bivariate and
multivariate Logistic regressions were computed to test association between independent variables and
outcome variable. Adjusted odd ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval was calculated to test
strength of association and Statistical significance was set at p-value of < 0.05 in the final regression
model.
Results: The prevalence of depression in the study participants was 38.1 %( 95% CI: 32.5, 43.6). low
medication adherence (AOR=3.04; 95% of CI: 1.45,6.38), diagnosed comorbid chronic physical illness
(AOR=4.14; 95%CI: 2.01,8.56), family history of hypertension (AOR=3.52; 95% of CI: 1.72,7.21),
poor social support(AOR=4.22; 95% of CI: 1.96,9.11), moderate to high perceived stress
level(AOR=5.92;95%CI: 3.01,11.64), and treatement duration greater than 10 years(AOR=3.74;
95%CI: 1.21,11.58) were variables become signinifantly associated with depression in this study.
Conclusion and recommendation: there is high prevalence of depression in study the participants. Low
medication adherence, having comorbid chronic physical illness, having family history of hypertension,
poor social support, having moderate to high perceived stress level and greater than 10 years duration
on treatment were factors signinifantly associated with depression in the study. So ruitine screening of
depression among patients with hypertension by considering the above stated factors is crucial for
early detection and management.
