A surey on mental health status in patients with primary hypertension

Objective To study the mental health status of patients with primary hypertension.Methods At Wuliqiao Street community of Shanghai Huangpu district,110 patients with primary hypertension and 101 healthy elder subjects completed the symptom checklist-90,Hamilton anxiety scale(HAMA) and Hamilton depression scale(HAMD),and the results were analyzed.Results The SCL-90 total average score and the average scores of somatization,obsessions,depression,anxiety,phobias,psychopathic symptoms,sleeping and diet deficit in patients with primary hypertension were significantly higher than those of healthy controls(P0.05).There were no significant difference between male and female both in patients with primary hypertension and healthy controls(P0.05).At least the score of one factor higher than 2 was seen in 28.2%(31) and higher than 3 was seen in 5.45%(6) of patients with primary hypertension.The most commonly seen problems were somatization,obsession,sleeping and diet deficit.The total scores of HAMD,HAMA and the anxious factor of HAMA in hypertensive patients were significantly higher than that in healthy controls(P0.05).Conclusions Some problems in mental health status were seen in patients with primary hypertension and should be specifically concerned.