The profile of Blood Pressure (BP) and the prevalence of Hypertension in school going children aged 5-15 years of Manipur, a North-Eastern hilly Indian state

Abstract

Background: Changing trend in lifestyle and increasing incidence of obesity in children may have a bearing on increasing incidence of adulthood hypertension. Recognition and timely intervention of childhood hypertension at the early stage may be the best strategy to decrease the burden of hypertension in the adult. Methods: This is a cross sectional study where school going children aged 5-15 years of age were examined physically and by 2D color Doppler Echocardiography. Children with systemic illness or any heart disease (structural or functional), were excluded. Anthropometric measurements particularly waist circumference and body mass index (BMI) were calculated and BP was recorded by aneroid sphygmomanometer. Statistical analysis was done using IBM SPSS Statistics version 22, and descriptive statistics like percentages, mean, median, standard deviation were generated.Results: Of the 2946 children selected out of 3600 examined, 1570 (53.30%) were boys and 1376 (46.7%) were girls with mean age of 11.06 years. The mean BMI was 17.82±3.76 kgm-2. The prevalence of normal, underweight, overweight and obesity were 84%, 6.3%, 8.04%, and 1.7 % respectively. The average mean SBP/DBP in children aged 5-10 years was (99.6±10.4)/(64.8±9.5) mmHg, while that in the group of 10-15 years was (105.2±11.5)/(67.4±9.1) mmHg. The total prevalence of pre-hypertension and hypertension in the study group were 516 (17.5%) and 451 (15.3%) respectively. Hypertension was detected in 14.55% of healthy weight, 21.6% of overweight and 29.4% of obese children.Conclusions: The prevalence of pre-hypertension and hypertension in school going children and adolescent is surprisingly quite high with a strong correlation with overweight and obese children.