Prevalence of hypertension in school going children in tea garden community in Dibrugarh town, Assam, India

Abhijit Dastidar; Smriti P. Dutta; Hiranya Saikia

doi:10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20163304

Authors

Abhijit Dastidar Department of Physiology, Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, 786002, Assam
Smriti P. Dutta Department of Physiology, Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, 786002, Assam
Hiranya Saikia Department of Community Medicine, Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, 786002, Assam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20163304

Keywords:

Hypertension, Children, Tea garden

Abstract

Background: The disease burden of hypertension among workers in tea gardens is large, despite the community not being obese. Consumption of high quantity of common salt (NaCl) is considered to be the main factor. Therefore it is expected that prevalence of hypertension and level of blood pressure would be higher among these group of children. Hence the present study was taken to determine the prevalence of hypertension in apparently healthy, asymptomatic school children of tea garden workers in the age group of 6-12 years.

Methods: Blood pressure was recorded in the right arm in the sitting position by using a standard Hg sphygmomanometer using appropriate cuff sizes. Three readings were taken at an interval of at least 5 minutes and the average of these three readings was considered as the blood pressure of the individual. Average SBP or DBP levels that are greater than or equal to the 95th percentile for sex, age, and height was taken as hypertension.

Results: The prevalence of systolic, diastolic and both systolic and diastolic hypertension are 3.86%, 1.71% and 4.29% and 2.62%, 0.37% and 5.24% in boys and girls respectively and the overall prevalence of hypertension was found to be 9.0% (systolic 3.2%, diastolic 1.0% and systolic and diastolic 4.8%).

Conclusions: The high risk children need to be considered for close follow ups for modification of risk factors by advising lifestyle changes like reduction in intake of salt.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Maton A, Hopkins J, Johnson S, McLaughlin DLCW, Warner MQ, Wright JD. Human Biology and Health. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA: Prentice Hall. 1994. ISBN 0-13-981176-1. OCLC32308337.

Guyton & Hall. Role of the kidneys in long term control of arterial pressure and in hypertension. Textbook of Medical Physiology. 12th ed, Elsevier Inc. 2012. Chapter 19:218.

Chanda SL, Tandon R, Shekhawat S, Gopinath N. “An epidemiological study of Blood Pressure in School Children (5-14 years) in Delhi, Indian Heart J. 1999;51:178-82.

Anand NK, Tandon L. Prevalence of hypertension in school going children. Indian J Paediatrics. 1996;33:377-91.

Nelson’s Textbook of Pediatrics, 17th Edition, Treatment of Hypertension. 2004;1596.

Moss AJ. Indirect methods of blood pressure measurement. Paediatrics clinics of North America. 1978;25:3

Taksande A, Chaturvedi P, Vilhekar K, Jain M. Distribution of blood pressure in school going children in rural area of Wardha district, Maharashtra, India. Ann Pediatr Card. 2008;1(2):101-6 .

Rocchini AR. Childhood Hypertension etiology, Diagnosis and treatment. Paediatrics Clinics of North America. 1984;31(6):15-25.

Report of the Task Force on Blood Pressure Control in Children. National Heart and Blood Institute, Pediatrics. 1977;59(Suppl):97.

Hazarika NC, Biswas D, Narain K, Kalita HC, Mahanta J. Hypertension & its risk factors in tea garden workers of Assam. National Med J India. 2002;15(2):63-8.

Chobanian AV, Bakris GL, Black HR, Cushman WC, Green LA, Izzo JL Jr., et al. The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure: The JNC 7 report. JAMA. 2003;289:2560-72.

Dube SK, Kapoor S, Ratner H, Tunick FL. Blood pressure studies in black children. Am J Dis Child. 1975;129(10):1177-80.

Rames LK, Clarke WR, Connor WE, Reiter MA, Lauer RM. Normal blood pressure and evaluation of sustained blood pressure elevation in childhood: The Muscatine study. Pediatrics. 1978,61:245-57.

Aggarwal R, Mandowara SL, Bhandari B. Blood pressure pattern in school children. Ind Pediatr. 1982;19:597-600.

Aggarwal VK, Sharan R, Srivastava AK, Kumar P, Pandey CM. Blood pressure profile in children of age 3-15 years. Ind Pediatr. 1983;20:921-5.

Laroia D, Sharma N, Dwivedi V, Mathur PS. Profile of blood pressure in normal school children. Ind Pediatr. 1989;26:531-6.

Gupta AK, Ahmad AJ. Normal blood pressures and the evaluation of sustained blood pressure elevation in children. Ind Pediatr. 1990;27;33-42.

Verma M, Chhatwal J, George SM. Obesity and hypertension in children. 1994;31:1065-8.

Anjana, Prabhjot, Kaur N, Kumari K, Sidhu S. Variation of blood pressure among school children of Amritsar (Punjab). Anthropologist. 2005;7(3):201-4.

Durrani AM, Waseem F. Blood pressure distribution and its relation to anthropometric measurements among school children in Aligarh. Indian J Public Health. 2011;55(2):121-4.

CDC Growth Charts: United States. For boys. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/ growthcharts/ data/ set2/ chart-07.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2013.

CDC Growth Charts: United States. For girls. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/ growthcharts/ data/ set2/ chart-08.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2013.

The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/ guidelines/ hypertension/ child_tbl.pdf. Accessed 12 May 2013.