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Abstract
The present study was designed to investigate participation in blood pressure screenings for children and enrollment in an aerobic exercise program for the treatment of hypertension in pediatric populations. A multi-component compliance package was implemented to promote compliance with the aerobic exercise program. In addition, the intervention package also included systematic programming for long-term adherence to the treatment protocol.
One thousand eight hundred twenty-three children were screened for hypertension. Sixteen of these children qualified for the study based on 3 separate blood pressure screenings. In addition to hypertensive children, 16 hyperlipidemic children were recruited for participation in the aerobic exercise program. Seven children actually began the aerobic exercise training program, and 5 completed the program.
Parental compliance with blood pressure screenings was significantly influenced by the site at which the screenings took place. It appears that factors such as immediacy of consequences and the cost/benefit ratio of participation vs. nonparticipation resulted in a low enrollment rate.
Once enrolled in the program, children and parents complied with the intervention while under the supervision of the researchers. As anticipated, this resulted in improved fitness. However, improved fitness did not result in lowered blood pressure. This may be related to the findings in earlier studies that suggest that fitness may not be related to blood pressure for pre-adolescent females. Another factor that may have contributed to this finding was the children's weight gain during the study. Gains in weight were significantly correlated with increases in systolic pressure.
By self-report, parents were inconsistent in their application of the intervention package when their children exercised at home and ceased implementation of that package completely once supervision had ended. This may be related to the complexity of the intervention package itself. However, since initial compliance with the aerobic exercise protocol failed to achieve expected reductions in blood pressure, motivation for long-term adherence was likely to have been low.
