Talk to the Veterans Crisis Line now
U.S. flag
An official website of the United States government
Veterans Benefits and Health Care About VA Find a VA Location

VA Health Systems Research

Go to the VA ORD website
Go to the QUERI website

HSR&D Citation Abstract

Search | Search by Center | Search by Source | Keywords in Title

How well do clinic-based blood pressure measurements agree with the mercury standard?

Kim JW, Bosworth HB, Voils CI, Olsen M, Dudley T, Gribbin M, Adams M, Oddone EZ. How well do clinic-based blood pressure measurements agree with the mercury standard? Journal of general internal medicine. 2005 Jul 1; 20(7):647-9.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions


Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Obtaining accurate blood pressure (BP) readings is a challenge faced by health professionals. Clinical trials implement strict protocols, whereas clinical practices and studies that assess quality of care utilize a less rigorous protocol for BP measurement. OBJECTIVE: To examine agreement between real-time clinic-based assessment of BP and the standard mercury assessment of BP. DESIGN: Prospective reliability study. PATIENTS: One hundred patients with an International Classification of Diseases-9th edition code for hypertension were enrolled. MEASURES: Two BP measurements were obtained with the Hawksley random-zero mercury sphygmomanometer and averaged. The clinic-based BP was extracted from the computerized medical records. RESULTS: Agreement between the mercury and clinic-based systolic blood pressure (SBP) was good, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.91 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.83 to 0.94); the agreement for the mercury and clinic-based diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was satisfactory, ICC = 0.77 (95% CI: 0.62 to 0.86). Overall, clinic-based readings overestimated the mercury readings, with a mean overestimation of 8.3 mmHg for SBP and 7.1 mmHg for DBP. Based on the clinic-based measure, 21% of patients were misdiagnosed with uncontrolled hypertension. CONCLUSIONS: Health professionals should be aware of this potential difference when utilizing clinic-based BP values for making treatment decisions and/or assessing quality of care.




Questions about the HSR website? Email the Web Team

Any health information on this website is strictly for informational purposes and is not intended as medical advice. It should not be used to diagnose or treat any condition.