Prevalence of Hypertension and Prehypertension in Iranian Children

Hypertension (HTN) is a significant public health problem worldwide. Early diagnosis of HTN and its related risk factors has been considered as one of the main requirements of general healthcare in children.

This study aimed to examine the nomograms of normal systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) and the prevalence of asymptomatic HTN and pre-HTN in a population of school-aged children.

Systolic and diastolic BP, height, and weight were measured in 5811 healthy school-aged children (2904 males and 2907 females) during healthcare visits. HTN was defined as systolic or diastolic BP ≥ 95th percentile for age, gender, and height of the screened population on ≥ 3 occasions. Pre-HTN was considered as systolic or diastolic BP between 90 - 95 percentile.

HTN and pre-HTN were detected in 8.4% and 7.8% of the children, respectively. The prevalence of HTN was 8.6% among the males and 8.2% among the females. Systolic HTN and pre-HTN were detected in 5.8 and 6.4% of the cases compared to diastolic HTN and pre-HTN observed in 5.9 and 6.1% of the participants, respectively. In addition, HTN was detected in 27.9% of children with obesity.

According to the high incidence of asymptomatic HTN and pre-HTN in asymptomatic children, it is recommended to perform routine BP measurement during medical care visits of all healthy school children and to prevent and treat obesity in childhood.