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Abstract
Objective Simultaneous bilateral arm blood pressure (BP) measurement (bilateral arm method) is suggested for the first BP measurement in clinical practice, but whether the arm BP measured with bilateral arm method (RA-2) is similar to that with unilateral arm method (RA-1) is unclear.
Design Quantitative research, paired sample T-test, Bland-Altman and multivariate linear regression analyses were used.
Setting This study included 295 subjects (18–90 years, 60.0±14.6 years old, 126 males) in the clinic of cardiovascular medicine of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University. They were randomly instructed to one of two BP measurement proposals: (1) right-arm–bilateral arm–right-arm–bilateral arm, or (2) bilateral arm–right-arm–bilateral arm–right-arm to attenuate bias induced by BP measurement order.
Participants From June to October of 2019, 295 outpatients (18–90 years, 60.0±14.6 years old, 126 males and 169 females) with sinus rhythm (SR) were enrolled. The exclusion criteria were acute myocardial infarction, congenital heart disease, acute heart failure, syncope, hemiplegia, arrhythmia and pulseless (by palpation).
Outcome measures We compared the BP differences between bilateral arm method and unilateral arm method. The difference between RA-2 and RA-1 was calculated as Dif-RA. Data are expressed as means±SD for continuous variables. The percentage increase (PI) was calculated on the formula: (RA-2−RA-1)/RA-1.
Results The RA-2 on systolic blood pressure (SBP)/diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was slightly, but statistically higher by 1.2/0.4 mm Hg against the RA-1. Multivariate regression analyses showed that hypertension therapy type was positive impact factor, but RA-1 was negative factor for PI of Dif-RA on SBP, DBP and pulse pressure.
Conclusion The SBP and DBP of right arm measured with bilateral arm method are slightly, but statistically higher (1.2 and 0.4 mm Hg) than those with the unilateral arm BP method.
- hypertension
- adult cardiology
- cardiac epidemiology
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Footnotes
TW and YW are joint first authors.
Contributors TW: data collecting and analysis. Y-hW: revision of article format. HS: provision of the idea and article writing. Z-qH: statistics and article improvement.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval The proposal and consent procedures of this study were approved by the Ethic Committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University. All patients provided their verbal informed consent. This study was performed in the Second Affiliated Hospital of the Nanchang University.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study. No data are available.