<p> The increase in obesity among America’s youth has resulted in an increase in the prevalence of prehypertension and hypertension (Becton, Shatat & Flynn, 2012). The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals developed guidelines for high blood pressure screening and are mandated for all school-based health centers in the state of Louisiana to help address this issue. Prior to the implementation of this synthesis project, these guidelines had not been implemented at the school-based health center at Northside High School. The purpose of this project was to implement these guidelines into the aforementioned school-based-health center. A process was developed to facilitate guideline implementation of these screening guidelines. This process included educating the school-based health center staff on the screening guidelines and use of each tool that was used in the process. One hundred eighty-four students visited the school-based health center for acute episodic care during the implementation phase of this project. The goal of this project was to screen each of these students according to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospital guidelines. The implementation of this process resulted in a significant increase in the number of students screened for hypertension according to the screening guidelines, with an increase from less than 1% to 92%. There were four students identified with prehypertension and two with a previous diagnosis of hypertension, each of whom were referred to their primary care physician. The implications of following the screening guidelines are that prehypertension and hypertension can be detected early in adolescents. Early detection and reduction of BP reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and improves long-term individual health outcomes.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10163311 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Creators | Lavergne, Nicole |
| Publisher | University of Louisiana at Lafayette |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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