Risk Factors for Hypertension in Outpatients at the Mother and Child Hospital in Aceh Province

— Introduction: Hypertension or high blood pressure is a condition where systolic blood pressure is ≥140 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure is ≥90 mmHg. In general, hypertension often occurs without complaints, so that patients do not know they have hypertension and are only known after complications occur. The risk factors for hypertension can be distinguished into risk factors that cannot be changed (such as family history, gender, and age) and risk factors that can be changed, such as being overweight or obese, lack of exercise or physical activity, smoking, stress, alcohol consumption and salt consumption. Objective: this is to find out the risk factors for hypertension at the Mother and Child Hospital in Aceh province in 2022. Methodology: This research is a type of analytic survey research using a quantitative method approach of the analytic observational type with a case control (retrospective) study design. The population in this study were all hypertensive patients who visited the outpatient polyclinic at the Mother Children's Hospital in the province of Aceh, a total of 2,740 people and the case sample was 97 while the control sample was 97 people. Data were processed univariately, bivariately and multivariately. Results: The results showed that there was a relationship between genetic history (P value 0.005), obesity (P value 0.000), diet (P value 0.002), while physical activity (P value 0.23) which means there is no relationship to the incidence of hypertension (P value 0.23). Recommendations: The results of this study indicate that the most dominant factor related to the incidence of hypertension is obesity.