A Study on Distribution of Blood Pressure among School Children (10 to 14 Years) in Urban Field Practice Area of a Medical College, E.G. District

Hypertension is known to be a direct or indirect cause of death globally. The prevalence is expected to increased to 1.56 Billion by 2025. The risk factors for hypertension include Obesity, Family history of Hypertension, and change in dietary habits, decreased physical activity and increase in stress. Early detection of hypertension and its precipitating factors is important if one is to evolve measures so that complications of hypertension can be prevented. Due to the paucity of studies the present study was undertaken with the fallowing objectives.

To study socio demographic profile of schoolchildren.

To study prevalence of hypertension among school children

To correlate Blood Pressure with anthropometric indices.

It is a School based cross - sectional study conducted in two private Schools to get a sample size of 225 study subjects in the age group of 10 to 14 years. A pre-designed Questionnaire was administered to collect information regarding socio demographic profile, personal food habits; exercises and general examination of the student were done. Blood Pressure, anthropometric measurements were recorded. Analysis was done by spss 16.0, coefficient of correlation analysis was applied.

The overall prevalence of hypertension among school children (10-14yrs) was 4.88%with systolic hypertension of 3.12%(n=7) and diastolic hypertension 1.78%(n=4). In each age group from percentiles 3th to 95th there is a raise in systolic blood pressure was observed. As the age increases there is raise in diastolic blood pressure was observed except at 12yrs age group. There was a positive correlation between height, weight, body mass index, age with systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure.

Prevalence of hypertension was more among girls than boys. Age, height, weight and BMI were positively correlated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure. It is therefore necessary to check the hypertension in children regularly.