Ambulatory blood pressure measurement in the main cities of Cameroon: prevalence of masked and white coat hypertension, and influence of body mass index.

Introduction: Identifying White Coat Hypertension (WCH) may avoid inappropriate commitment of individuals to lifelong and costly blood pressure (BP) lowering medications'. We assessed the prevalence and determinants of WCH in urban clinical settings in Cameroon.

Methods: Participants were a consecutive sample of adults, who underwent ambulatory BP measurements (ABPM) for the diagnosis of hypertension and evaluation of treatmentin three referral cardiac clinics in the cities of Yaounde and Douala, between January 2006 and July 2011.