Document Type : Research articles

Authors

• Fatemeh Abbaszadeh ¹
• Nahid Sarafraz ¹
• Mahboobeh Kafaei Atrian ²
• Zohreh Sadat ³
• Azam Bagheri ¹
• Alireza Moravveji ⁴

¹ Midwifery Department, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran

² Department of Health Education, School of health- (International Campus), Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran

³ Trauma Nursing Research Center, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Midwifery Department, Kashan, Iran

⁴ Professor of preventive and Community Medicine Social Determinants of Health Research center, Department of Preventive and Community Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran

Abstract

Background: Identifying the best marker for appropriate screening of risk factors of chronic diseases seems necessary in any society.
Objectives: This study aimed at performing a comparative evaluation of anthropometric indices to determine a better marker for prediction of high blood pressure in adolescents.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was done during 2013 on 1046 students, aged 11 to 19 year old in Kashan, who were chosen by cluster and class sampling method. Height, waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-high ratio (WHtR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of the subjects weremeasured. Blood pressure of all subjects, who had their blood pressuresmeasured during the first visit, wasmeasured during the second and third visit again, and the threemeasured blood pressure averages was considered as subjects’ blood pressure.
Results: This study showed a significant positive correlation between BP and body mass index (BMI), WC, WHR, and WHtR indices (P < 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was performed. Area under the curve (AUC) was obtained for BMI (0.62 to 0.73), WC (0.67 to 0.76), WHR (0.57 to 0.67), andWHtR (0.63 to 0.77) in diastolic blood pressure and BMI (0.66 to 0.76), WC (0.68 to 0.78), WHR (0.57 to 0.67) and WHtR (0.67 to 0.77) in systolic blood pressure. The WHtR in adolescents had better distinguishing power than other anthropometric indices.
Conclusions: TheWHtR, as a relatively simple, inexpensive, and convenientmeasurementmethod is the best anthropometric index for determination of blood pressure in these subjects.

Keywords

• Hypertension
• Adolescent
• Body Mass Index
• Waist Circumference
• Waist-to-Hip Ratio
• Waist-to-High Ratio