One in three adults in the UK has high blood pressure and doctors have been encouraging patients to ease off pressure on practices by taking blood pressure readings at home.
In fact, one in eight GPs believes those over the age of 45 taking their own readings will mean they can skip a trip to the doctors because at-home blood pressure monitors are just as accurate.
However a new study has revealed many of the devices are actually too inaccurate to be useful.
The researchers found 70 per cent of the time readings by patients seeking to manage their hypertension – meaning high blood pressure – weren’t correct within 5 mmHg, which they explained was clinically important.
In the study, around 30 per cent of the time the devices were 10 mmHg off.
Blood pressure is measured with two numbers, showing the systolic pressure, when the heart pumps blood, and diastolic pressure, when the heart rests between pumps.
For healthy blood pressure levels your readings should be below 120 mmHg systolic/80 mmHg diastolic.
If you have a reading above 140/90 mmHg your pressure is high.
This can put an extra strain on your heart and blood vessels, which over time can increase your risk of heart attack or stroke.
“(Hypertension) is the number one cause of death and disability in the world,” said lead study author Jennifer Ringrose of the University of Alberta in Canada to Reuters Health.
“Guidelines are recommending that clinicians rely more on automatic and home blood pressure readings to diagnose and monitor high blood pressure.
“We need to make sure these home blood pressure readings are accurate.”
The researchers discovered the systolic pressure readings for at-home devices was most often wrong in the 85 patients in the study.
For 54 percent this measurement differed by 5 mmHg from the professional device they tested it against, for 20 percent it was wrong by 10 mmHg, and for seven percent it was off by 15 mmHg or more.
With diastolic pressure readings, the same was true of 31 percent, 12 percent and one percent of patients.
Other factors associated with more of a discrepancy included patients being male, of older age and with a larger arm circumference.
Additionally, older devices were most inaccurate – but worryingly even some newer models gave wrong readings.
“The market for this equipment is rising dramatically into the billions in the next couple of years as patients age, and more doctors are using them to diagnose and manage hypertension,” said Marcel Ruzicka of the University of Ottawa to Reuters Health.
“As health care providers, we’re becoming more dependent on the numbers that patients are bringing to us, and in a busy office where you can’t get a true resting blood pressure, those may be the only numbers you have.
“It’s important to be aware that this inaccuracy is out there. Next, we should ensure that accuracy checks are widely available and not cost prohibitive for device owners,” said Ruzick.
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