title: Specificity and sensitivity of blood pressure measurements.
abstract: Specificity and sensitivity of a biological test describe the ability of the test to exclude false and to include true positives. A method is described for estimating such values for blood pressure measurement. Estimated values are given for various cut-off levels of the diastolic blood pressure. The method indicates that the optimal cut-off for defining hypertension is found to be at the blood pressure level where the specificity is appraoching 100% and where the sensitivity is about 20%. For example, for males aged 50--59, this is obtained at the diastolic blood pressure level of 105--110 mg Hg.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination / Q000379:methods*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000401:mortality; D005188:False Negative Reactions; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged