Prevalence of Superimposed Preeclampsia and associated factors among Women with Chronic Hypertension who gave birth at Saint Paul’s hospital millennium medical college Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>The prevalence of chronic hypertension during pregnancy is on average around 10% worldwide and of this around 25% on average will develop superimposed preeclampsia. Little is known about superimposed preeclampsia in Ethiopia. So, the objective of this study is to determine prevalence of superimposed preeclampsia and associated factors in one of tertiary referral center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.</p> <p><strong>Methodology: </strong>A hospital based retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College starting from February 1, 2019 to January 31, 2020. All pregnant women who were diagnosed with chronic hypertension and admitted for delivery were included. The admission data summary was reviewed for data collection. Data was collected using questionnaires, entered and analyzed using SPSS version 23. After bivariate analysis, multivariate logistic regression analysis was carried, we used p=0.05 for stastical significance.</p> <p><strong>Result: </strong>This study indicated that the prevalence of superimposed preeclampsia among pregnant women with chronic hypertension to be 44.1%. This study reveals high risk ANC follow up (AOR-4.5 95% CI 1.5-14) is an independent factor associated factor with development of superimposed preeclampsia. There was no association seen with respect to maternal age, parity, marital status, occupation and GA at diagnosis.</p> <p><em><strong>Conclusion: </strong></em>The prevalence of superimposed preeclampsia was found to be higher in this study. Most of social-demographic and obstetrics factors were not associated with superimposed preclampsia. Additionally, unfavorable neonatal outcomes were found to be higher among women with superimposed preeclampsia than those with chronic hypertension only.</p>