Frequency, Treatment, And Management of Gestational Hypertension: Findings of A Retrospective Analysis from Quetta City, Pakistan

Objective: There is a scarcity of information about the treatment and management of GHTN especially from the developing world. Therefore, keeping the importance and urgency of the issue in hand, the current study was aimed to evaluate the frequency, treatment, and management of gestational hypertension among pregnant women visiting a public healthcare institute of Quetta city, Pakistan. Methods: A retrospective, cross-sectional design was employed for the current study. The study was conducted at the Obstetrics and Gynecology (O&G) ward of Bolan Medical Complex Hospital, Quetta. For the retrospective analysis, we collected the data of one year. Patients’ data were recorded on a verified data collection form. In addition to the demographic, anthropometric, and clinical information, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines was used to compare the treatment and management of GHTN as a reference. Results: A total of 2974 medical records were collected over a period of one year out of which 79 were diagnosed with GHTN (f =2.65%). Forty six patients (58.2%) were prescribed methyldopa while 18 (22.8%) were prescribed labetalol for GHTN. Additionally, hydralazine, furosemide, and captopril were prescribed to 5 (6.3%), 4 (5.1%), and 2 (2.5%) of the patients, respectively. Recommendation of lifestyle modification was completely ignored and not a single patient was instructed for dietary control neither any sort of exercising activity was recommended as per records. Conclusion: Our study found major insufficiencies in terms of GHTN treatment and management. A clear deviation from the guidelines was evident as practitioners failed to identify women at high risk of developing GHTN and were unable to segregate the risk by missing out essential parameters. Screening parameter for evaluation, as suggested by NICE Guidelines for segregating patients at high risk of developing GHTN and associated complications were also suboptimal.