Uneven Accuracy of Home Blood Pressure Measurement: A Multicentric Survey

Home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) is increasingly commonly performed, but the concordance between patient HBPM measurement technique and prevailing recommendations has not been well-assessed according to the literature. The authors performed a multicentric survey to evaluate the degree of patients' adherence to current recommendations on HBPM, and investigate potential predictors of a higher-quality self-measurement. A structured questionnaire was administered to 725 Italian outpatient hypertensive patients (mean age, 52.2 +/- 14.4 years). Overall, 10 recommended procedures were followed by 52.8% of the participants; only 1.0% followed all recommendations. A total of 49.7% of participants rested for 5minutes before the measurement, 36.8% recorded BP more than once in each measurement session, and 34.3% used a chair or bed saddle to support their back. Less than 40% of the patients received some form of training by health professionals. After multivariate analysis, patients receiving/reading instructions showed higher-quality HBPM (P<.01). The accuracy of HBPM needs to be improved, and more efforts should be devoted to provide patient training on HBPM, especially on the less-frequently followed recommendations.