Patient preferences for ambulatory blood pressure monitoring devices: Wrist-type or arm-type?

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is important in evaluating average 24-hour blood pressure (BP) levels, circadian rhythm, sleeping BP and BP variability but many patients are reluctant to use standard ABPM devices.

We compared two validated ABPM devices, the BPro tonometric wrist monitor and the A&D TM-2430 oscillometric upper arm monitor, for agreement of recordings and acceptability in 37 hypertensive patients (aged 55±9 years).

Successful BP measurements were less frequent with the wrist-type than the arm-type device during the sleeping (66.3% vs. 92.9%, P <0.01) and awake periods (56.2% vs. 86.5%, P <0.01). Comparable paired readings showed no significant difference in systolic BP but diastolic BP (DBP) values were higher with the wrist compared to the arm monitor (24-hour 89±13 vs. 85±14 mmHg, P <0.01) with similar differences awake and sleeping. Bland-Altman analysis showed some large discrepancies between individual arm and wrist monitor measurements. More patients found the wrist monitor more comfortable to use than the arm monitor.

Despite the difference in individual BP measurements and the systematic overestimation of DBP values with the BPro device, wrist monitors with good patient acceptability may be useful to facilitate ABPM in some patients to provide additional information about cardiovascular risk and response to antihypertensive therapies.