Comparison of self-reported home blood pressure measurements with automatically stored values and ambulatory blood pressure

Aims: To evaluate accuracy of patient-reported home blood pressure measurem ents (HBPM) when compared to real HBPM and their agreement with 12-h daytim e ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM). Major findings: Self-reporte d HBPM were compared to stored values of a fully automated, oscillometric b lood pressure monitor with integrated memory device and 12-h daytime ambula tory monitoring in 54 patients. In most patients (n = 46, 85%) mean reporte d systolic or diastolic versus real HBPM differed by no more than 4 mmHg. I n eight mostly uneducated patients (15%, 95% confidence interval, CI, 7-27% ) means of reported and real HBPM differed by more than 4 mmHg (range 5-28 mmHg for systolic and 0-11 mmHg for diastolic blood pressure). Systolic agr eement between self-reported HBPM and 12-h daytime ABPM was better for pati ents reporting greater than or equal to 80% than for patients reporting <80 % of measurements correctly (mean systolic difference 0 +/- 19 versus 5 +/- 14 mmHg, respectively), whereas the opposite was true concerning agreement of diastolic blood pressure values (mean diastolic difference -6 +/- 10 an d -1 +/- 9 mmHg, respectively). Conclusion: Inadequate conclusions due to p oor reporting accuracy of HBPM are possible, especially in less educated pa tients. Thus, ABPM or automatically stored HBPM may be preferable to self-r eported HBPM in these patients.