Epidemiological characteristics of elevated blood pressure among middle and high school students aged 12-17 years: a cross-sectional study in Jiangsu Province, China, 2017-2018

Objective: In this study, we aimed to present the epidemiological characteristics of elevated blood pressure among middle and high school students aged 12-17 years in Jiangsu Province.

Setting: Hypertension, which is considered a rare disease in children, is an important early precursor to long-term cardiovascular damage, and elevated blood pressure in childhood is a strong predictor of hypertension in adulthood.

Participants: Physical examination and questionnaire investigation among children aged 12-17 years in Jiangsu Province were conducted from 2017 to 2018.

Main outcome measures: Physical measurements included height, weight, blood pressure and history of menarche/first spermatorrhoea. Questionnaire investigation included family type, delivery mode, lifestyle habits and psychological test.

Results: In our study we investigated 17 791 middle and high school students, consisting of 8701 female students and 9090 male students. The prevalence of screening elevated blood pressure among students aged 12-17 years was 20.0% (95% CI 19.2% to 20.9%) for female students and 22.3% (95% CI 21.5% to 23.2%) for male students. The prevalence of screening elevated blood pressure for urban male middle and high school students was higher than that of elevated blood pressure for rural male middle and high school students. However, similar phenomenon cannot be observed among female students. For both male and female students, body mass index (BMI), obesity/overweight and menarche/first spermatorrhoea can be a risk factor contributing to elevated blood pressure, and sleep time and regional distribution might be important factors that need to be investigated in depth.

Conclusion: We found a relatively high prevalence of screening elevated blood pressure among students aged 12-17 years for both female and male students in Jiangsu Province. The risk factors can be BMI, obesity/overweight and menarche/first spermatorrhoea.