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Blood pressure self-measurement in normotensive and hypertensive patients
Insights
Home blood pressure readings are consistently lower than casual measurements, but highly correlated. This suggests a quantitative difference, with self-registered diastolic values over 90 mmHg indicating hypertension.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Hypertension Research
- Preventive Medicine
Background:
- Casual blood pressure measurements can be influenced by various factors, leading to potential discrepancies.
- Home blood pressure monitoring offers an alternative method for assessing blood pressure trends.
- Understanding the relationship between casual and home blood pressure is crucial for accurate diagnosis and management.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare casual blood pressure readings with home blood pressure measurements.
- To investigate the correlation between these two methods across different blood pressure categories.
- To establish thresholds for interpreting home blood pressure readings.
Main Methods:
- Recruited 41 normotensive, 39 hypertensive, and 21 borderline hypertensive subjects.
- Collected both casual (in-clinic) and home blood pressure measurements.
- Analyzed the data for differences and correlations between the two measurement types.
Main Results:
- Casual systolic blood pressure averaged 8.6 mmHg higher than home readings.
- Casual diastolic blood pressure averaged 4.0 mmHg higher than home readings.
- A highly significant correlation (P < 0.001) was found between casual and home readings for both systolic and diastolic pressures.
- 55% of hypertensive subjects had self-measured diastolic readings >90 mmHg, compared to 5% of normotensive subjects.
Conclusions:
- Home blood pressure measurements are quantitatively lower than casual readings but show a strong correlation.
- The difference between casual and home blood pressure is primarily quantitative, not qualitative.
- Self-registered diastolic blood pressure values exceeding 90 mmHg may indicate hypertension.
Abstract:
In this study casual blood pressure was compared with home blood pressure measurement in 41 normotensive, 39 hypertensive and 21 borderline hypertensive subjects. The average casual readings for the whole group were 8.6 mmHg higher for systolic and 4.0 mmHg higher for diastolic pressures than self-determined values. Casual and home-registered blood pressures showed a highly significant relationship (P less than 0.001) for both systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings. In the distribution of self-measured diastolic blood pressure readings, normotensive subjects rarely (5%) showed values higher than 90 mmHg, whereas hypertensive subjects had a relatively high percentage of diastolic readings above that level (55%). The results confirm previous reports of lower self-determined than casual blood pressure values. However, the high correlation between these two methods of blood pressure measurement indicates that in general there is a quantitative rather than a qualitative difference between casual and self-registered blood pressures. Finally, self-registered diastolic values exceeding 90 mmHg may be interpreted as hypertensive.