Prevalence study of hypertension among students at the Medical Science Department of the University of Taubaté [Estudo da prevalência de hipertensão arterial em acadêmicos do Departamento de Ciências Médicas da Universidade de Taubaté.]

Abstract

PURPOSE--To study the prevalence of hypertension related on the exposition to the main risk factors. METHODS--We studied 153 students of the Medical Science Department of Taubaté University, aged between 17 to 35 years. The chosen method was the stratified simple aleatory sample. RESULTS--The prevalence of hypertension was 5.88% where all of them had one or more risk factor. A significant systolic blood pressure increase in male was found by comparing to the female. CONCLUSION--The risk factors considered alone, did not change the mean value of the hypertension, while the obesity when associated with one or more risk factors showed a considerable increase on the averages of diastolic blood pressure.