Prevalence and correlates of preeclampsia in Hoima District- Western Uganda.

Abstract

Background: Global maternal health indicators remain worrying; a woman dies every two minutes due to obstetric complications, 33% of which occur in pregnancy. Preeclampsia is the single most concerning pregnancy complication since it causes adverse pregnancy outcomes, in addition to multi-organ dysfunction and cardiovascular disease. Of more concern, its treatment once incident is never certain to result into good outcomes; this partly explains why preeclampsia is associated with 50,000 global maternal deaths. It was projected that without effective secondary prevention interventions, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy including preeclampsia may surpass postpartum hemorrhage in being the leading cause of maternal mortality, yet the disease is easily preventable. However, its prevention requires that its magnitude and possible correlates are known, for which Hoima district had no such documentation.

Objective: To determine the prevalence and correlates of preeclampsia among pregnant women in Hoima District - Western Uganda.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was adopted, targeting 286 women at five months or more of gestation. Hoima Regional Referral Hospital and the health center IV were purposively sampled. Half of the health center IIIs 12(50%) were sampled using simple random sampling and the pregnant women consecutively sampled. They were engaged in structured interviews and subjected to blood pressure and urinalysis assessments. Data obtained was entered and analyzed in STATA 14 using a binomial logit model, which yielded adjusted odds ratios.

Results: The prevalence of preeclampsia in Hoima district is 1.7%, although Isolated Gestational Proteinuria is five times as high, at 9.1%. No socio demographic, intrapersonal or obstetric characteristics had a statistically significant association with preeclampsia (p>0.05) and hence were not correlated with it.

Conclusion: The prevalence of preeclampsia in Hoima district is low; only about 2 in every 100 of them have the hypertensive disorder in pregnancy. But, 9 in every 100 of them are at a very high risk of developing preeclampsia as they progress through gestation. However, neither socio-demographic, nor intrapersonal nor obstetric characteristics have correlations with preeclampsia in Hoima district. While status quo should be maintained in terms of pre-partum preventive efforts for preeclampsia, there is need for healthcare service providers to screen for proteinuria, identify IGP cases and treat them before progression to preeclampsia.