• Hye Ah Lee, Bohyun Park, Eun Ae Park, Su Jin Cho, Hae Soon Kim, Eun Jeong Choi, Nam Eun Kim, and Hyesook Park.
• Clinical Trial Center, Mokdong Hospital, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea.
• J. Korean Med. Sci. 2020 Mar 30; 35 (12): e91.

BackgroundRoutine blood pressure (BP) measurement is recommended to begin at 3 years of age, but there are no national BP reference values for Korean children less than 7 years of age. Therefore, we developed sex-, age-, and height-specific BP reference values for non-overweight children aged 3-9 years.MethodsWe analyzed the data of 416, 340, 321, 323, and 332 subjects aged 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9 years, respectively, who participated in the Ewha Birth and Growth Cohort Study. BP percentile curves were generated using generalized additive models for location, scale, and shape. Reference values for the 50th, 90th, and 95th percentiles of BP were determined according to sex, age, and height percentiles.ResultsIn both boys and girls, a gradual increase in systolic blood pressure (SBP) with age was more pronounced than that in diastolic blood pressure (DBP). In boys, the reference values for 90th percentile of SBP/DBP at median height for children aged 3 and 9 years were 105/69 and 118/70, respectively. In girls, the reference values corresponding to the above conditions were 105/69 and 116/70, respectively. Among children aged 7-9 years of median height, the 90th percentile of SBP in the current study was lower and that of DBP was similar to the national reference values of Korea. For children aged < 7 years of median height, the reference value for SBP, but not that for DBP, was similar to that developed in the European study.ConclusionAlthough further research is needed, our findings could be used to help identify high BP in children less than 10 years of age.© 2020 The Korean Academy of Medical Sciences.

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