A Study to Assess the Effect of Sitting With Feet Flat on the Floor Vs Sitting With Cross Leg Position on Blood Pressure Reading Among Hypertensive and Normotensive Subjects in Selected Hospital of Delhi

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are accepted as one of the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in developed and developing countries of the world. Risk of cardiovascular diseases depends upon blood pressure and co-existent factors. Hypertension is the most important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. At any given time 15–20% of population is at risk with hypertension. Hypertension sometimes called a “silent killer” because people who have it are often symptom free. Diagnosis and treatment of various health care problems uses the most commonly available technique, which is, blood pressure monitoring, which is also an essential tool for determining the existence of hypertension. An experimental study with pre-test-post-test-only design was used for the study. The study was conducted in ESI Hospital, Basaidarapur, New Delhi. The total population of the study consisted of normotensive and hypertensive patients visiting the outpatient department of ESI Hospital. Systematic random sampling was used for selecting 60 normotensive and 60 hypertensive subjects, in which 30 in experimental group and 30 in control group. Blood pressure of the subjects was assessed using aneroid sphygmomanometer. The significant findings of the study revealed that the mean systolic blood pressure of experimental group of normotensive adults i.e. 119.8 mm Hg was higher than control group of normotensive adults i.e. 115.8 mm Hg with mean difference 4.07 mm Hg with S.E.MD of 1.8 and t value of 2.16 which is greater than the table value (2.00) at df (58) at 0.05 level of significance. Mean diastolic blood pressure of experimental group post-test of normotensive adults i.e. 76.13 mm Hg was higher than control group post-test of normotensive adults i.e. 73 mm Hg with mean difference 3.10 mm Hg with S.E.MD of 1.4 and “t” value of 2.21 which is greater than the table value (2.00) at df (58) at 0.05 level of significance. The mean systolic blood pressure of experimental group of hypertensive adults i.e. 130.80 mm Hg was higher than control group of hypertensive adults i.e. 123.33 mm Hg with mean difference 7.47 mm Hg with S.E.MD of 2.8 and t value of 2.66 which is greater than the table value (2.00) at df (58) at 0.05 level of significance. The mean diastolic blood pressure of experimental group of hypertensive adults i.e. 81.46 mm Hg was higher than control group of hypertensive adults i.e. 76.71 mm Hg with mean difference 5.30 mm Hg with S.E.MD of 2.45 and t value of 2.16 which is greater than the table value (2.00) at df (58) at 0.05 level of significance. The mean systolic blood pressure of hypertensive subjects i.e. 130.8 mm Hg after intervention was higher than that of the normotensive subjects i.e. 119.8 mm Hg with t value of 4.55 which is greater than the table value (2.00) at df (58) at 0.05 level of significance. The mean diastolic blood pressure of hypertensive subjects i.e. 81.47 after intervention was higher than that of the normotensive subjects i.e. 76.13 with t value of 2.66 which is greater than the table value (2.00) at df (58) at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study suggest that sitting with cross leg at knee has an effect on both systolic and diastolic blood pressures of the normotensive and hypertensive adults, i.e. the crossing of legs increases the systolic and diastolic blood pressure of normotensive adults in sitting position. Sitting with cross leg at knee has significantly greater effect on systolic and diastolic blood pressures of the hypertensive adults than normotensive adults.

Keywords: factors affecting blood pressure, sitting with cross leg position, sitting with feet flat on the floor