title: Inaccuracy of home sphygmomanometers: a perspective from clinical practice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Home blood pressure monitoring requires a precise blood pressure measurement technique and an accurate sphygmomanometer. The oscillometric sphygmomanometers have some drawbacks including in accuracy. The aims of this study were to assess the inaccuracy of home sphygmomanometers using a method first proposed in 2009 and to compare validated devices with other devices.
  
  
  METHODS
  Three hundred and eighty-two home sphygmomanometers that had been brought by individuals to the University Hospital were included in this study. This method has three stages(general evaluation, quick screening, final assessment) and sequential measurement of blood pressure is used for assessment. The devices were categorized into two groups for comparisons: validated and 'others'.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One hundred and fourteen (30%) of the 382 devices were validated. Final assessment showed 91 (24%) of the 382 devices to be inaccurate. Inaccuracy among the 'others' and wrist devices were more common than for the validated and upper arm devices (P < 0.0001 for both comparisons). The categorization of upper arm
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephrology, Ondokuz Mayis University School of Medicine, Samsun, Turkey. tekinakpolat@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Tekin
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Akpolat
authors.forename: Türkan
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Aydogdu
authors.forename: Emre
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Erdem
authors.forename: Ahmet
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Karatas
mesh_terms: D001132:Arm / Q000098:blood supply; D018660:Blood Pressure Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D019722:Sphygmomanometers / Q000592:standards*; D054928:Validation Studies as Topic