Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring In A Nonacademic Setting: Effects of Age and Sex

Abstract

Twenty-four-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurements (ABPM) are likely to eliminate the stress of visits and observer bias in office blood pressure (BP) recordings, allow consideration of the arcadian variability in BP, and correlate well with target organ damage. To define the prevalence of "white coat" hypertension in a rural community to a nonacademic setting, and to assess age and sex related differences, we studied 131 patients who had more than two prior office diastolic BP measurements > 9 0 mm Hg and P = .013), and the elderly did not display the relationship between ambulatory and office mean BP seen in younger subjects (r = 0.15, P = .30 υ r = 0.36, P = .0004, respectively). We conclude that: 1) ABPM offers useful insight into physiological BP variations and may eventually alter the decision to treat, 2) women are more likely to demonstrate “white coat” hypertension, and 3) older individuals do not display a nocturnal drop in systolic BP and are the group that may benefit most from ABPM. Am J Hypertens 1992;5:616–623