Determinants of newly-diagnosed raised blood pressure: The Malaysian context

Background: Raised blood pressure, also known as hypertension (HPT), has been a distressing health concern among Malaysians. An upward trend is found on the prevalence of newly-diagnosed HPT, contributing to the high number of overall hypertensive patients in Malaysia. To understand the cause and reduce the economic burden caused by HPT, current research aims to examine the dependency among sociodemographic and behavioural determinants of newly-diagnosed HPT among Malaysians. Methods: The current study uses secondary data from the Fifth National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS V) 2015, a population based cross-sectional study. This study uses the Bayesian Network (BN) modelling to design and build a ‘causal’ model and identify potential determinants and their respective conditional probability on the prevalence of newly-diagnosed HPT among Malaysians. Results: This study shows that Malaysians with newly-diagnosed HPT are directly affected by the age and body mass index (BMI). Additionally, household income, sex, marital status, ethnicity, strata, education levels, occupation, fruit intake, vegetable intake, smoking status, physical activity and plain water intake indirectly affect the incidence of the newly-diagnosed HPT. Conclusion: These results may be helpful in implementing appropriate policies to prevent and monitor the increasing prevalence of newly-diagnosed HPT among adults in Malaysia.