Arterial Blood Pressure Measurements with a Portable Recorder in Hypertensive Patients

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Abstract
Utilizing a new portable semi-automatic blood pressure recorder, 62 hypertensive patients recorded their blood pressure at half-hour intervals throughout the day for 2 or 3 consecutive days, allowing determination of the average, range, and variability of arterial pressure, as well as variations in pressure from day to day and within each day. No correlation was found between the variability of diastolic pressures and the average pressure, but the variability of systolic pressures was slightly correlated with the average recorded pressure. With a few exceptions, the average pressure obtained with the portable recorder was considerably lower than the average casual pressure taken in the clinic. The higher the average casual pressure, the more closely it approximated the average of the 5 highest pressures obtained with the portable recorder. Although a significant correlation was found between the average casual and the average recorded pressures of the group, there were wide departures from the average relationship in individual instances. These differences were often striking, and indicate that one cannot predict with precision the recorded pressures from the casual pressures in individual patients.