title: Home monitoring of blood pressure. Comparison of once daily morning measurements with those made throughout the day.
abstract: Six subjects were investigated to establish whether self-recorded morning blood pressure is a reliable indicator of that taken throughout the day. After instruction, subjects recorded resting blood pressure on 6 successive mornings, and then hourly throughout the day. The morning pressures in each patient on each of the 6 days were very closely related to one another, with an overall mean of 157/102 mmHg (n = 36). Overall blood pressures throughout the day were not significantly different from the morning ones (158/100 mmHg, n = 88). Standard deviation for morning systolic blood pressure in each patient ranged from 4.5-8.4 compared with 3.8-10.4 mmHg for systolic blood pressure throughout the day. For diastolic blood pressure the ranges of standard deviation were 2.3-8.4 and 2.6-6.5 mmHg, respectively. No patient demonstrated a circadian rhythm. It seems that self-monitoring of blood pressure is reproducible and that the time of day that the measurement is made is unimportant, provided the patient is resting.
authors.affiliation: Hypertension Clinic, Royal Infirmary, Bristol, UK.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Banks
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vann-Jones
mesh_terms: D001795:Blood Pressure Determination; D002940:Circadian Rhythm; D006701:Home Nursing; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000503:physiopathology