AUTHOR(S): Poonam Singh and Pramjeet Singh Ghuman

ABSTRACT:
Background: Obesity is increasing rapidly and leads to changes in terms of lifestyle and nutrition, and somehow also leads to under nutrition problems due to more emphasis on reducing weight through dieting that indirectly leads to nutrients deficiency. Objectives: 1. to find out prevalence of hypertension and pre-hypertension among female school children. 2. To find out association between hypertension and socio-economic status. Material & Method: A total number of 800 female children (6-10 years) were selected randomly from 4 private and 4 government schools of Jaipur City, Rajasthan. A total of 800 school children with 400 girls and 400 boys were examined. Updated Kuppuswamy socio-economic status questionnaire was used to assess socio-economic status. Automated blood pressure measuring apparatus (OMRON) was used for assessment of hypertension among school children. Data was analysed by using the SPSS version 17.0. The statistical technique used were two-way ANOVA and correlation with level of significance was set at 0.05. Results: Results revealed that prevalence of hypertension was higher in age group of 7 and 10 years among children of private and government school. The prevalence of pre-hypertension was found as 20.12%, and hypertension was found as 12.87% among children of private school. On the other hand among government school, the prevalence of pre-hypertension was found as 8.87%, and was found as 6% among children. Overall prevalence of hypertension among female children of Private and Government schools. In children was higher among private schools in comparison to government schools. Further, insignificant relation was found between hypertension and socio-economic status among children of both government and private schools. Conclusion: The prevalence of hypertension was higher in private school children in comparison to the children from government schools. This could be due to the difference in terms of socio-demographic characteristics. Physical inactivity reflects the increasing trend besides with the change in terms of dietary habits that is the major risk factor for pre-hypertension and hypertension. It is suggested from the study that school children should be checked/screened on regular basis for assessment of hypertension for prevention of the complications during their adulthood stage.

Pages: 1111-1115  |  875 Views  53 Downloads