prevalence of hypertension and prehypertension in iranian children

Background: 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. objectives: 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. methods: 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.results: 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. conclusions: 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.