Life habits of hypertensive elderly men. / Hábitos de vida de homens idosos hipertensos.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To identify the habits of life in elderly hypertensive men of the city of Currais Novos/RN; correlate life habits and presence of comorbidities. METHODS: An exploratory and descriptive, quantitative study with a sample of 136 elderly hypertensive patients. Data collection took place from August to October 2016, through the structured interview technique. Descriptive and inferential analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 20.0. RESULTS: Most of them reported practicing physical activity (52.9%), seeking health services (82.4%), having healthy eating (94.9%), denying smoking (91.2%) and alcoholism (77.9%). The most frequent comorbidity was diabetes (17.6%). CONCLUSIONS: Most participants reported having healthy life habits, which they believe influence on disease control. Among the investigated parameters, only the habit of not smoking was associated with the absence of hypertensive peaks; the other habits did not present statistical association with the comorbidities.