| IntroductionHypertension is one of the most common vital cardiovascular diseases for adults,which seriously threatens the health of human beings. From 1970' s, many studies have found an association between the essential hypertension of adults and that in childhood. But the causes for the changes of children' s essential hypertension are still unclear; and more over, there is still no consensus for a standardized diagnosing criteria for hypertension in childhood worldwide. As previous studies demonstrated the western areas in Liaoning Province is the region with high prevalence of hypertension. In this study, we carried out a survey on the status of child s hypertension among school-aged children 7 ~ 14 years in Beipiao City of Liaoning Province in 2001, as well as a case-control study to explore some possible causes for the children' s essential hypertension.Materials and Methods1. Selection of objectives(1) Sampling method:With randomly stratified cluster sampling method, 4 primary schools in the City area and 36 primary schools in the suburb were selected. All the children 7 ~ 14 years old in the school were recruited. In city area, totally 1453, 675 boys and 778 girls were collected; while 4309, 2216 boys and 2,093 girls in the suburb.(2 ) Identification of cases and controlsAll the hypertensive children were enrolled into the case group; while, the controls were matched with same sex, age ( 1 years old) in the same class and living in the same village.2. Blood pressure (BP) measurements and hypertension diagnosis criteria(1) BP measurement method;Blood pressure was measured in accordance to the protocol of the measurement method of child blood pressure" recommended by the Centre of American cardio-pulmonary-blood Research Team. In it, the blood pressure is calculated with two measured results.(2) Hypertension diagnosis criterion;Korotkoff I is the systolic blood pressure (SBP) , Korotkoff IV is the diastolic blood pressure (DBP) . Diagnosis criteria for hypertension is: 122/78 mmHg in 7 ~ 9 years ; 126/86 mmHg in 10 ~ 12years; 136/86 mmHg in 13 ~ 15years.3. Data collectionMain indicators for investigation in the study include elementary datum, disease histories, body measurements etc. For case-control study, other measures such as white blood cell ( WBC) , red blood cell (RBC) , hemoglobin concentration (HB) were also used.4. Blood biochemical analysisCapillary blood of 40 (jj was collected from the fourth finger of left hand for each recruited children. Blood analysis was carried out in terms of RBC, WBC, HB, HCT, and so on. All blood samples were analyzed within 24 hours after the collection.5. Statistical analysis:Database was created and analyzed by SPSS software. Main ana-lysing methods are: t-test, x2 text Logistic regression analysis.Results1. Blood pressure level and distribution featuresOur results show that no matter of SBP or DBF , there is a significant difference between girls and boys (P <0. 01) , mean blood pressure level in girls (97. 76 11. 25mmHg) was obviously higher than that in boys (61. 36 9. 26mmHg). Mean values of SBP and DBF were both increased with age rising. An accelerating trend was found in both boys 13yrs and girls 12yrs.In terms of SBP and DBF, no significant difference was found between urban and rural children. But age-BP curves of boys and girls showed different shape among different regions. In urban group, the two curves crossed each other, while in rural group the two curves were paralleled with each other.2. Prevalence of hypertensionTotally, 163 children were measured with hypertension in our survey, with the prevalence rate of 2. 8%. Significant difference was found in prevalence rate between girls (3. 6% ) and boys (2. 1% ). The same difference was also demonstrated between city and the countryside. Significant difference was also showed among five areas in suburb, while the prevalence rate in western area (0.4% ) was significantly lower than other areas.Prevale... |
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