Arterial pressure in a student population in Aquila

The preliminary data of a policentric study for the determination of the blood-pressure values and the risk factors associated with high-blood pressure are reported for establishing a prospective epidemiological research. This research involved 258 children attending nursery, elementary-school in the city of L'Aquila. The weight, height, the triceps-skin-fold, the heart-rate, the blood systolic and diastolic-pressure (fifth tone) were examined. Furthermore the parent who accompanied the child was given a questionnaire in order to define: the general information concerning the child and the parent, the family anamnesis concerning the pathology correlated to the high-blood pressure, the child's weight at birth and the thronging-index (the ratio of the number of the family members with respect to the number of the habitable rooms). The obtained data show, especially for the PAS, higher blood-pressure values (greater than 95. percentile) in the grown-up subjects and in the male. The close correlation between the heart rate, BMI and the weight at birth, on one hand, and the blood-pressure values on the other hand, show, besides the validity of the research carried out, the connection between the blood-pressure situation and other physiological, paraphysiological and pathological factors. In conclusion, observing that a considerably high percentage of subjects with high-blood pressure values (5.8%' is one important result, especially for the future implications that it can have; it has to be defined if this situation has a prediction value of constant high-blood pressure in the adult and in what measure the examined factors influence the stabilization of this pathological situation.