Determinantes da pressão arterial elevada em crianças: um estudo caso-controle em Vitória-ES

Abstract

Hypertension constitutes a major public health problems around the world for its strong impact on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Clinical and epidemiological studies have shown that the hypertension has reached the early stages of life and supporting the hypothesis that high blood pressure actually begins in childhood. Unlike the adult, in which the determinants for the development of hypertension are well established, in children are poorly understood and often conflicting in different studies in the literature. This study aimed to identify predictors of the occurrence of high blood pressure in children aged 7 to 10 years. For this, a case-control study was conducted from a representative sample of children aged 7 to 10 years in Vitória / ES. The case group is consisted of 159 children with high blood pressure (systolic or diastolic BP ≥ 95th percentile) and control group is consisted of 636 children with normal BP levels (BP < 90th percentile), a total of 795 children. We carried out annealing of children by age and sex. We studied socio-demographic variables (race, color, type of school, socioeconomic class and maternal education) and children variables (BMI, birth weight, gestational age, exclusive breast-feeding time in sedentary activities, duration of physical activity, sleep time per day and maternal smoking). Significant differences between cases and controls were observed for prematurity (OR= 1.8 IC95%1.0 – 3.0; p=0.038), type of public school (OR= 1.9 IC95%1.1 – 3.2; p=0.021) and tobacco exposure (OR= 0.5 IC95%0.3 – 0.8; p=0.005). Children born prematurely or who study in public school, has twice as likely to have high blood pressure and children whose mothers did not smoke (OR= 0.5 IC95%0.3 – 0.8; p=0.005) have 50% less chances of having high blood pressure.