THE EFFECTS OF FAMILY SIZE ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF BLOOD PRESSURE WITH CIRCUMFERENCES IN THE FEMALE STUDENTS OF BAHAUDDIN ZAKARIYA UNIVERSITY, MULTAN, PAKISTAN

Abstract

A randomly selected sample of 600 female students of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan, aged between 18 – 25 years belonging to different socio-economic group was examined. This sample was divided into 5 groups having different family sizes. Mean (± SEM) values for age, arm, waist, neck, total circumferences, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) in different groups were calculated and it was found that these groups do not differ from each other in these parameters. The correlation coefficients between different independent (age, arm, neck, waist and total circumference) and dependent (SBP, DBP and MAP) variables were also calculated and it was found that age had a strong association (P < 0.05; P < 0.01; P < 0.001) with all type of blood pressure in all the groups. Moreover all the circumferences had a strong relationship (P < 0.05 at least) with blood pressure in all the groups except waist circumferences in the family size of < 4. The regression coefficients of age were highly significant for SBP, DBP and MAP in all groups. The regression coefficients of all the circumferences were non-significant (P > 0.05) in family size of < 4 individuals, arm circumference in a group having < 10 and arm and waist circumferences in a group having a family size of > 10 whereas these were significant in all other groups (P < 0.05 at least). The results of present study demonstrate that neck and total circumferences could be but arm and waist could not be used for the prediction of hypertension in young female having family size of > 4 and < 10 individuals.