Prevalence of Hypertension and its Risk Factors Among School Going Adolescents of Patna, India.

INTRODUCTION: Hypertension (HT) has its origin in childhood and adolescent period but it goes undetected due to absence of sign and symptoms, unless specifically looked for during this period. It has been seen that one with raised blood pressure level in this period will also have raised Blood Pressure (BP) level in their adulthood and elderly period.

AIM: The present study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of HT and its risk factor among apparently healthy school going adolescents of Patna district.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study among 2913 school going adolescents of eighth to 10(th) standard was conducted from April 2014 to August 2015 by adopting a two stage cluster sampling technique. The questions pertaining to risk behavior in relation to cardiovascular diseases from WHO's Global School based Student Health Survey were used for this study.

RESULTS: The mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure of study population was 107.4 mm of Hg (95% C.I. 106.93-107.77) and 67.4 mm of Hg (95% C.I. 67.26-67.54), respectively. Prevalence of pre-HT and HT was 10.9% and 4.6% in school going adolescents while prevalence of overweight/obesity was 1.5%. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressures had positive and significant correlation with age, height and body mass index. The proportion of children who had ever taken tobacco was 5.3%, cigarette smoking 4.3%, alcohol consumption 2.1%, and excess salt intake 22.3%. Only 49.1% children were doing physical activity at least one hour a day in past seven days for maintenance of good health.

CONCLUSION: The present study recommends that regular screening of blood pressure level must be initiated in adolescents so that remedial measure can be initiated as early as possible.