Troche VM, Estrada PM, Quevedo MM

Language: Spanish
References: 0
Page: 466-475
PDF size: 409.60 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: the diagnosis of high blood pressureand its risk factors goes right unnoticed in childhood and adolescence, so it is vital to perform an active screening in pediatric population to improve its assessment and prognosis.
Objective: to identify the prevalence of hypertension in adolescents belonging to the Ernesto Guevara Polyclinic of Sandino municipality and to describe some risk factors.
Method: a descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out that included 392 adolescents with ages between 11 and 15 years. All of them underwent anthropometric and blood pressure measurements. The variables chosen were: weight, height, body mass index, abdominal circumference. The data obtained were summarized in absolute and relative frequencies, the association between them was measured by the X2and Odds Ratio tests with a 95% confidence interval.
Results: pre-hypertensive prevalence was 3.57% and 5.87% of hypertensive, predominantly male gender (85.71% in pre-hypertensive and 56.52% in hypertensive). Hypertension was the most frequent family history (81.08%). Among the personal risk factors, central obesity prevailed (75.67%) (OR = 3.97, 95% CI: 1.91-8.27) and exclusive breastfeeding less than 6 months (72.97%) (OR = 2.91, 95% CI: 1.4- 6.03), both showed a very significant association with high blood pressure.
Conclusions: there is a high prevalence of hypertensive and pre-hypertensive among the adolescents studied, mainly related to family history of those suffering from this disease, overweight and poor diet habits; this fact must be taken into consideration to work on the necessary prevention and control measures.