title: Doctor-elicited blood pressure rises at the time of sphygmomanometric blood pressure assessment persist over repeated visits.
abstract: Blood pressure assessment by a doctor triggers an alerting reaction which may raise patients' blood pressure to a marked degree. Because this may lead to an overestimation of the prevalence of hypertension, it is important to determine whether attenuation of this blood pressure rise occurs with repetition of the doctor's visit. In 16 ambulant inpatients with mild essential hypertension, blood pressure was recorded intra-arterially for 2 days, using the Oxford method. During the recording the patients had four 10-min visits during which blood pressure was repeatedly measured by a sphygmomanometer. The visits to each patient were made by a doctor who had never seen him or her before and were regularly distributed over the total daytime available. In nearly all patients intra-arterial blood pressure and heart rate were elevated throughout the 10 min of each visit, with a peak during the first 4 min and a subsequent decline. The peak mean blood pressure rises were 22.6 +/- 1.8, 20.3 +/- 2.4, 19.3 +/- 2.4 and 21.4 +/- 3.1 mmHg (means +/- s.e.m.) in the four visits. Respective peak heart rate rises were 17.7 +/- 1.7, 20.7 +/- 2.4, 19.8 +/- 2.2 and 17.0 +/- 1.9 beats/min. The reduced pressor and tachycardic responses observed at the 10th min of the visit were also similar in the four visits (blood pressure: 19, 15, 28 and 24% of the peak response; heart rate 21, 13, 24 and 9% of the peak response, respectively). These findings show that the blood pressure rise often accompanying sphygmomanometric blood pressure assessment by the doctor persists after several visits spaced at close time intervals.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Centro di Fisiologia Clinica e Ipertensione, Ospedale Maggiore, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mancia
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Parati
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pomidossi
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Casadei
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Groppelli
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sposato
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zanchetti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010820:Physicians