[The validity of screening for hypertension in school-age children. A cross-sectional study of a sample of 861 pupils of the towns of Local Health Unit No. 22 of Vittoria (Sicily)].
In order to define the validity of a screening program for hypertension in schools, aiming to prevent an hypertensive status in adult age, we screened 861 children from schools on the area of our Medical District (U.S.L. 22--Vittoria--Sicily). The object of our study is to search for risk factors of hypertension, detectable at school age and, if existing, which age is more suitable for a screening program. We randomly sampled 861 children from different schools, aging 6, 10 and 13 years. The first step was to define the prevalence of hypertension and obesity in the sample, and the correlation between the two factors (transversal study). We found an overall prevalence of obesity at 6, 10, and 13 years of 6.69%, 18.22% and 17.7% respectively. The prevalence of hypertension was 4.01%, 11.4%, and 6.98% at 6, 10 and 13 years respectively. The second step is to create a personal record of each child, which will be followed up to the age of 18 years, containing familial and nutritional informations, periodic evaluations of height, weight, blood pressure and biologic sampling (longitudinal study). Our preliminary results confirmed the correlation between obesity and hypertension, although they do not help to clarify why the prevalence of hypertension decreases from 10 to 13 years whereas obesity maintains the same prevalence at the mentioned ages.