Associations of physical activity levels, and attitudes towards physical activity with blood pressure among adults with high blood pressure in Bangladesh

Fakir M Amirul Islam; Mohammad Ariful Islam; Mohammad Arzan Hosen; Elisabeth A Lambert; Ralph Maddison; Gavin W Lambert; Bruce R Thompson

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0280879

Associations of physical activity levels, and attitudes towards physical activity with blood pressure among adults with high blood pressure in Bangladesh

PLoS One. 2023 Feb 3;18(2):e0280879. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280879. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Fakir M Amirul Islam^{1

2}, Mohammad Ariful Islam², Mohammad Arzan Hosen², Elisabeth A Lambert^{1

3}, Ralph Maddison⁴, Gavin W Lambert^{1

3}, Bruce R Thompson¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia.
² Organisation for Rural Community Development (ORCD), Dariapur, Narail, Bangladesh.
³ Iverson Health Innovation Research Institute, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia.
⁴ Faculty of Health, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN), Deakin University, Geelong, VIC, Australia.

Abstract

Background: Physical activity is important for the control of high blood pressure (hypertension). We aimed to investigate the associations of current physical activity levels, sedentary time, knowledge of and attitude towards physical activity with blood pressure in people with hypertension in a rural area in Bangladesh.

Methods: A total of 307 adults aged 30 to 75 years with hypertension were recruited from the Banshgram Union of Narial district as part of a cluster-randomized control trial. Current blood pressure was measured as the outcome variable. Associated variables included physical activity at work, travel to and from places, recreational activity, metabolic equivalent task (MET)-min, sedentary time, and awareness of and attitudes towards physical activity. Rasch analysis was used to compute a combined score from the five awareness of and attitudes towards physical activity items and categorized into 0-40 (towards negative attitude), 41-60 score (mixed attitude) and 61-100 (positive attitude). We used a generalised linear model to analyze the data.

Results: Participants (n = 68, 22.1%) who engaged in vigorous-intensity physical activity that causes large increases in breathing or heart rate like carrying or lifting heavy loads, digging or construction work for at least 10 minutes continuously had lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) (mean (95% confidence interval (CI)), 143.6 (140.1, 147.2)) compared to those who did not take part in a vigorous-intensity physical activity (mean (95% CI), 150 (147.6, 152.3)). MET-min less than 600 min/week was significantly associated with higher SBP 153.8 (148.1, 159.6) than MET-min 600-2999 min/week 148.0 (143.0, 152.9) and MET-min>3000 min/week 146.9 (144.5, 149.3), p = 0.001 for trend. Sitting time more than four hours a day was associated with higher DBP 91.4 (89.7, 93.0) compared to those who had sitting time less than fours a day 88.6 (87.1, 90.1). People with positive attitudes were associated with a reduced SBP of 10.6 (0.36, 20.8) mmHg and DBP 5.88 (0.47, 11.3) compared to the people who had a negative attitude towards taking part in physical activity.

Conclusions: Participating in high physical activity and positive attitudes towards physical activity were associated with lower blood pressure levels. Physical activity awareness programs should be implemented to increase awareness of health benefits and increase participation in high physical activity.

Copyright: © 2023 Islam et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Randomized Controlled Trial
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Bangladesh
Blood Pressure
Exercise
Humans
Hypertension* / epidemiology
Sedentary Behavior

Grants and funding

We received only AU$5000 for baseline data collection. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.