Hypertension among School going Urban and Rural Adolescents: A Comparative Study

Background: In the modern society, technology has contributed to create physical comfort in the life and simultaneously, there is alteration in dietary habits of youngsters. This has affected adolescent’s health significantly, leading to hypertension in both urban and rural adolescent population. Objectives: Present study aimed to access and compares the prevalence of hypertension among urban and rural adolescent. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional comparative study conducted on 300 healthy age matched adolescents, 10- 19 years of age from each of rural and urban school of Jaipur (Rajasthan). After Institutional Ethical Committee and school administration approval, a predesigned proforma was filled having socio-demographic details, personal and family history. An average blood pressure was calculated by measuring 3 recordings with 5 minutes break through sphygmomanometer. The blood pressure was classified on percentile bases into prehypertension and hypertension. The data inferred by chisquare and ‘p-value’ less than 0.05 considered as significant. Result: The prevalence of hypertension among urban and rural adolescent of Jaipur was 7.6% and 7%, while prehypertension was 32% and 28%, respectively. The prevalence of hypertension was high for systolic than diastolic blood pressure and more in late adolescent than early adolescent age group which was found significant only for systolic hypertension (p=0.003). Conclusion: High prevalence of adolescent’s hypertension is an important risk factor for future consequences of cardiovascular disease suggesting that there should be change in lifestyle. The early detection and management of it can prevent any future disability and mortality.