We aimed to determine the patterns and prevalence hypertensive complications among newly diagnosed individuals in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

We carried out a cross-sectional study from January to April 2017 in four references hospitals of Yaoundé. Patients were recruited in outpatient cardiology consultations, emergency departments as well as internal medicine, cardiology, neurology and resuscitation services. We included newly diagnosed hypertensive (less than 6 months) patients, aged over 18 years present in one of our recruitment settings and who provided written inform consent. Patients with long lasting hypertension and those presenting diabetes were excluded. Data collection was done using a structured, self-administered questionnaire and medical information collected from medical record. Qualitative variables were described as count and percentage while quantitative data were described by mean±standard deviation.

Overall, 338 patients (188 women) with a mean age of aged of 57±12 years were included. Major complaints on admission were or weakness of limbs (29.3%), headaches (21.3%) and dyspnea (13.02%) and grade 3 hypertension was the most found (51%). The most frequent cardiovascular risk factors were dyslipidemia (71%), physical inactivity (69.82%) abdominal obesity (69.82%) and obesity (68%). In total, 84.6% of our sample presented at least one target organ damage at diagnosis. Stroke (mainly ischemic) was the most frequent complication found in 31.7% of participants followed by left ventricular hypertrophy (21.9%) and arrhythmia (13%).

The increasing prevalence of hypertension in our context is associated with a delay in diagnosis leading to an important proportion of target organ damage and development of complication in more than eighty percent of patients even before diagnosis.