Prevalence of diabetes and hypertension in geriatric population of urban areas of Peshawar

Objectives: to find the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension in old people of urban areas of peshawar and its effect on literacy and financial dependency on geriatric health. material and methods: study type was cross sectional descriptive study design,conducted from april 2014 to may,2014. sample size of 250 was randomly selected from 5 urban areas of peshawar. data was collected through semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. results: prevalence of diabetes was 32% and hypertension was 48.4%. males were 42.3% and 57.5% females were hypertensive,among whom 94.6% were totally dependent. diabetes prevalence was 29.8% in males and 35.35% in females,among them 70.9% were totally dependent. among literates 53.79% had diabetes,66.89% had hypertension. among illiterates 2% had diabetes,24% had hypertension. chi-square showed significant association between sex,literacy,dependency and hypertension. literacy and dependency had significant association with diabetes while sex had not. conclusion: results showed that hypertension is more common in females but sex has limited role in prevalence of diabetes. most of the illiterates are non-hypertensive and non-diabetic compared to literates. financial dependency has direct impact on prevalence of both diseases. © 2016,khyber medical college. all rights reserved.