Subjective symptoms and mental complaints of mild hypertensive people were surveyed by the Todai Health Index (THI), a scaled symptom checklist, as it has been said that the hypertensives have few or no subjective symptoms. Hypertensive subjects, 148 males and 184 females, were sampled from an adult population of some 5, 000 aged 40 to 69 years old in a village. They were once told by the physician they had high blood pressure and all of them perceived that they actually had high blood pressure. Their mean blood pressure was 147.50 and 144.12 mm Hg, for male and female subjects, with their standard deviaiton being 15.39 and 11.06 mm Hg, respectively. The paired controls matched for sex and age were selected from the normotensive people, whose mean blood pressure was 130.94 and 126.47 mm Hg, respectively. The male and female hypertensives had significantly higher mean scores in three scales out of a total of 12 scales:?gvague complaints?h, ?gimpulsiveness?h, and?gmental instability?h. They also had significantly higher prevalence rates in the following symptoms or items out of 130 items: ?goverweight?h, ?ghot flashes?h, ?gpain in various parts of the body?h, ?gdesire to occasionally to lie down in bed during the day?h, ?gbecome unfriendly when I meet an impolite person?h, ?gmentally tired?h, and?gdepressed?h. These results indicate that mild hypertensives have more physical complaints and are mentally irritated, unstable or weak. The hypertensive people who have perceived their high blood pressure have tried to spend their daily time schedule more regularly than the normotensives, which was revealed by the lower scale score in?girregularity of daily life?hscale of THI. Male and female hypertensives had different characteristics in three age groups of 40s, 50s, and 60s. Those symptoms or complaints of the hypertensive could be used for their lifestyle modification more effectively.
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