Comparison of clinic, home self-measured, and work self-measured blood pressures.

Self-measured and clinic blood pressure (BP) estimates of patients' true levels of BP were compared as part of a controlled study of stress management training for essential hypertension. Forty-three patients underwent 6 to 9 clinic measurements and made 48 self-measured readings of BP at home and at work before and after treatment. Analyses showed that (a) self-measured BP values at work and at home were significantly correlated with each other but did not correlate with clinic blood pressure measurements at pretreatment, and (b) test-retest correlations over 2 months and intraclass correlations of self-measured BP measures were significantly higher than those of clinic BP measurements. Findings indicated that self-measurement improved the estimations of patients' true levels of BP and improved the sensitivity and feasibility of studies assessing the efficacy of antihypertensive treatments.