Abstract

PEREZ FERNANDEZ, Guillermo Alberto  and  GRAU ABALO, Ricardo. Toward the prediction of arterial hypertension in adulthood from adolescence. RCIM [online]. 2012, vol.4, n.1, pp. 43-53. ISSN 1684-1859.

Introduction: the Hypertension European Society Recommendations under the supervision of The European Cardiology Society for the treatment of high blood pressure (HBP) in children and adolescents recognize that HBP in the pediatric age is an increasing medical problem with current and future negative repercussions. In addition they refer to the lack of strategies or organized health policies dealing with the problem. It is unknown due to the scantiness of following studies from adolescence to adulthood when is possible the conversion from the risk to the disease. Objectives: to determine the interactions among several risk factors in the developing of HBP from adolescence to adulthood. To design a predictive model in order to predict the developing of HBP from adolescence to adulthood. Material and methods: a representative sample of 125 prehypertensive adolescents were followed up through 8 years till year 2009. A predictive model based in a decision tree was done using the CHAID (chi square automatic interaction) technique with the evaluation by areas under the ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curve. Results: a decision tree was designed that was able to classify accurately 80 % of the cases. With this model 67.4 % and 86.6 % of true negative cases and true positive cases, respectfully. Conclusions: the age of the diagnosis of the prehypertension, the birth weight, the familiar obesity and the unfavorable familiar environment were the situations that had the strongest interaction among them in the timing from adolescence to adulthood. The prediction model is an instrumental contribution for predicting HBP in adulthood from adolescence.

Keywords : arterial hypertension; prehypertension; adolescence; score; prediction.

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