Factors influencing adolescent blood pressure: the Debrecen Hypertension Study.

Aim: To obtain epidemiological data on the blood pressure (BP) status of high school students and factors influencing BP. Methods: Subjects filled out a questionnaire and three repeated BP measurements were taken. All high school attending students in Debrecen (final sample n = 10,194, mean age 16.6 8 1.0 years) participated in the study. Results: Boys had significantly higher systolic BP (+11.3 mm Hg) and diastolic BP (+2.2 mm Hg) than girls (p ! 0.001). There was a positive correlation between weight and BP (r syst = 0.42, r diast = 0.29), height and BP (r syst = 0.33, r diast = 0.15), body mass index (BMI) and BP (r syst = 0.31, r diast = 0.27). Multiple regression analysis was used for statistical analysis. Gender ( � = 0.36), BMI ( � = 0.25), hypertension of parents (father � = 0.04 and mother � = 0.02), smoking, alcohol consumption and age determined systolic outcomes in descending order. For the diastolic model, BMI remained a strong determining factor ( � = 0.25) and gender was also significant ( � = –0.09). Entering independents together accounted for 28.2% of the total variance in systolic and for 18.1% in diastolic BP. Conclu