Prevention and control of arterial hypertension in students from “Antonio Rodríguez” school. Colón 2016

Abstract

Background: arterial hypertension is the most common of the conditions that affect health of adult persons all over the world, therefore it is very important to increase risk perception since pediatric ages.
Objective: to design a project of educative intervention in teenagers from “Antonio Rodríguez” secondary school in the municipality of Colón to prevent arterial  hypertension in adult ages and to promote  healthy life styles and surroundings.
Methodology: it was made a cut of a communitarian project of the polyclinic “Dr Carlos J. Finlay”. A cross-sectional, descriptive study was carried out during the period February-May 2016. The sample were 158 ninth-grade teenagers belonging to “Antonio Rodríguez” secondary school of Colón municipality. The corresponding measures were taken and an inquiry was elaborated for collecting data. The studied variables were the following:  age, sex, race, corporal mass index, toxic habits, and alimentary habits.
Results: the female sex and white students predominated. 58 pre-hypertensive students and 3 grade-1 hypertensive ones were diagnosed. They were studied and treated. The most frequent alimentary risk factors were the ingestion of risk levels of potassium, calcium and sodium. Passive smoking prevailed and, although the normal nutritional status was the most frequent, it was alarming the number of low weight teenagers.  Conclusions: bad alimentary habits and unhealthy life styles were the risk factors that stroke the most on the teenagers of the studied sample.