Feasibility of self blood pressure measurement: The REVEIL study

The REVEIL study is a pilot studes to determine the feasibility of self blo od pressure measurement (SBPM). Feasibility was assessed by the quality of measurements and the patient opinion. This preliminary report focused on th e patient opinion. Patients were included in the study by their general pra ctitioner or cardiologist when he thought there was an indication for SBPM. Patients were excluded if their physical or mental autonomy was not suffic ient to perform SBPM or if they were arrhythmic. The lending of the device was free (against a guarantee of 800 F) and it was available in one of the 44 drugstores that participated to the study. The physician performed patie nt education about SBPM and the druggist explained the handling of the devi ce. SBPM was performed over a 7-day period: every day two series of 3 consecuti ve measurements were requested in the morning before taking the antihyperte nsive treatment. and in the evening between dinner and bedtime. The device was the validated OMRON 705 CR 428 patients were included in the study. Amo ng them, 385 (90%) accepted to participate to the study and 43 refused (10% ). Almost half of the refusals were due to patients that did not want to ta ke care of them and 16% were justified by a technical problem. Preliminary data included 362 patients aged 55.2 years, 79 of them older than 70 years. 80 patients (22%) experienced difficulties to perform SBPM, 28 of them (7. 3%) to perform measurements and 13 (3.4%) to understand how worked the devi ce. At the end of the study, 82 patients (23%) had better understanding of their hypertension, 90 patients (25%) felt themselves more motivated to tak e their medication and 111 patients (31%) found that their physician took b etter charge of them. 286 patients (79%) evaluated the overall satisfaction at SBPM. Among them, 276 patients (97%) were very satisfied (57%) or satis fied (40%) with SBPM when only 3% of patients were not. In summary, SBPM was easily performed in the conditions of the REVEIL study , and the majority of patients was satisfied with this experience.