Hidden morbidity due to arterial hypertension in adolescents with overweight and other factors

Abstract

Introduction: arterial hypertension and obesity are diseases that have increased in recent years in adolescents.
Objective: to describe hidden morbidity due to arterial hypertension in adolescents with excess weight and associated factors.
Methods: a descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out in adolescents aged 14 to 17 years with malnutrition due to overweight from January to July 2020 at the "Chiqui Gómez Lubián" Polyclinic in Villa Clara Province. The sample (by non-probabilistic purposive sampling) consisted of 41 adolescents. Those whose parents did not give their consent and those who had been dispensed for another disease were excluded. Descriptive statistics of absolute numbers and hundreds and the Chi-square test of homogeneity were used.
Results: the predominant sex was male and the age group was 14 to 15 years. More than half of the sample had alterations in blood pressure (51.2%) and a higher frequency of overweight (56.1%). The higher the degree of blood pressure, the higher the frequency of adolescents in the groups with a higher degree of obesity.  In the frequency and profile of the population subgroups that differed in terms of risk factors, the categories with the highest grade in the nutritional evaluation, subgroup 2, hypertension, exposure to tobacco, sedentary lifestyle and family history of hypertension, were mostly represented.
Conclusions: more than half of the sample were prehypertensive or hypertensive. The greater the excess weight, the greater the degree of hypertension.