HIN Health Action e-Bulletin

New Hypertension Screening Card for Pediatric and
Adolescent Age Groups

Pediatricians, pediatric nurses, school health personnel, and health care services for children and adolescents will find a valuable new resource in the Pocket Guide to Blood Pressure Measurement in Children (Pocket Guide). This colorful, laminated card covers ages 3 to 17 and gives the cut points for stages of hypertension for each gender-age-height subgroup. It updates the tables from the Fourth Report on the Diagnosis, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure in Children and Adolescents (Fourth Report) with new features.

The Pocket Guide Makes Life Much Easier For the Busy Clinician

It has:

• Heights given in centimeters instead of percentiles.

• The card expresses the height percentiles from the Fourth Report as the centimeter heights at midyear of each age-gender group. The conversion is based on the Pediatric Growth Charts from the American Academy of Pediatrics which derive from the updated (2000) Growth Charts of the Centers for Disease Control.
  
  

• Clear definition of hypertension stages in children

• Normal:	Less than 90th percentile
  Prehypertension:	> or = 90th percentile to < 95 th percentile
  Stage I hypertension:	> or = 95th %tile to < or = 99th %tile + 5 mmHg***
  Stage 2 hypertension:	> 99th %tile + 5 mmHg

  
  

• Specific blood pressure readings that correspond to the 99th %tile + 5 mmHg

• The tables in the Fourth Report are comprehensive and accurate, but they can be hard to use in the real world. They give blood pressure (BP) readouts for the 50th, 90th, 95th, and 99th percentiles for each gender-age-height group. However, the Fourth Report does not give readouts that correspond to the 99th percentile + 5 mmHg, which defines the upper limit of stage 1 hypertension and above which begins stage 2 hypertension. The clinician must mentally add 5 to the BPs in the table. In contrast, the Pocket Guide does this for you.
  
  

• Classifications of hypertension printed directly in the tables

• Simplified tables

• Because diastolic hypertension rarely occurs without systolic hypertension in children, and because the Pocket Guide is a screening tool, it lists systolic pressures only. It also omits the 50th percentile blood pressure readings. This makes the tables less cluttered and focuses attention on critical readings that signal hypertension.
  
  

• Handy "pocket" size, easy-to-read font, and color coding

Order the Pocket Guide (item # 07-5268)
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The New Pocket Guide Allows You to Go Directly From Measuring a Child's Height and Blood Pressure to Classifying the Blood Pressure Status for that Child

Check Out the Sample Below:

*** This definition is correct. It replaces the error in the previous HIN e-mail of 12/21/2007 about the Pocket Guide. A corrected version also appears at http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/joinhin/news/PedHBP.htm.

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