Abstract:Objective To explore the impact of anxiety on the hypertension prevalence of residents during flood resettlement period.Methods A total of 645 flood-hit residents who were arranged to take refuge in a university of Fuzhou in Jiangxi Province from June 21st to 27th,2010 were enrolled.Blood pressure and heart rate were measured every day in the first three days.Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) was used to evaluate their anxiety status,and self-designed questionnaire was employed to describe their demographic characteristics and other related factors affecting anxiety.Results The age of the residents was(46.1±19.1)years old.Based on repeated-measurement ANOVA for blood pressure and heart rate by three different methods (day 1 method,mean value method and full height method),the prevalence of hypertension were respectively 10.4%,8.1%,and 4.8%,and there were statistical differences in them (χ2=14.239,P<0.01 ).There were significant differences in systolic blood pressure,diastolic blood pressure and heart rate in different days (P<0.01 ),and systolic blood pressure of different days had an interaction effect on anxiety groups (P<0.05 ).There were differences in systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure among different anxiety groups (P<0.01 ).The prevalence of hypertension in anxiety group was significantly higher than that in non-anxiety group in the three methods ［day 1 method (19.5% vs 6.3%,P<0.01 ),mean value method (15.5% vs 4.7%,P<0.01 ),full height method(9.5% vs 2.7%,P<0.01 )］.Day 1 method showed that older age,history of hypertension and high anxiety score were the risk factors of hypertension(P<0.05 ,P<0.01 ).Mean value method and full height method showed older age and high anxiety score were the risk factors of hypertension(P<0.01 ).Conclusions It is necessary to measure the blood pressure of the flood-hit residents repeatedly in different days for the clinical diagnosis of hypertension,especially for the elderly and those with high anxiety scores.The survey suggests that the prevalence of hypertension in the anxiety residents is 4.1 to 4.5 times higher than that in non-anxiety residents.