determinants of hypertensive disorders in pregnant women attended at parirenyatwa group of hospitals in zimbabwe from january - december 2022

Background: globally 2.73% of pregnant women suffer from hypertension. currently, there is still a gap of knowledge in zimbabwe on hypertensive disorders of pregnancy hence the present study. methods: an analytical cross-sectional study was conducted. the structured checklist was used to extract data. hbp was measured two times on the right arm using an electronic device (omron hem-7261) with an average of two readings. patient records were used to collect secondary data from prenatal care visits and laboratory tests. we used simple random sampling methods to screen prenatal care records for pregnant women. all pregnant women at parirenyatwa group of hospitals in 2022 were eligible and constituted our study population. the sample size was determined statistically by power analysis using epidemiological information, this yielded a sample of 240. the prevalence of hbp in pregnancy and risk factors were determined by fisher exact test using graph pad (prism version6.0), p < 0.05 was set as statistically significant. results: 240 pregnant women were enrolled given a prevalence of hbp of   25%. most pregnant women having hbp are 36 to 40 years old and located in urban areas (92%, n = 55). gestational age 33 % (n = 5), gravida 3-4 (33%, n = 13) parity 3-4 (74%, n = 25), and multiple pregnancy (25%, n = 5) were the most associated with hbp. pre-existing hypertension was the most common comorbidity 92%.family history of hbp (or = 4.62, 95%, ci = 1.4-15.1), p = 0.016) and age being < 30 years or= 0.26, 95%, ci = 0.14-0.49), p = 0.0001) were associated with hbp. conclusions: the prevalence of hbp in pregnancy was higher (25%) than the worldwide prevalence of 2.7% and risk factors are mainly age and family history of hbp.