Correlation between electronic wrist blood pressure with auscultatory blood pressure in children.

Objective: The increasing prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents has turned hypertension into an important public health issue. In the current literature, auscultatory blood pressure measurement is recommended for the diagnosis of hypertension. The number of studies comparing electronic blood pressure measurement and auscultatory blood pressure measurement is limited. This study aimed to compare auscultatory blood pressure measurement with electronic blood pressure measurement in the children population group aged 5-15 years.

Patients And Methods: A total of 72 patients aged between 5-15 years without chronic disease were included in the study. Anthropometric measurements (height, weight, body mass index, wrist circumference, mid-upper arm circumference) were performed. Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and mean arterial pressure (MAP) were first measured electronically from the wrist using an Omron Rs7 Intelli It HEM-6232T device, and then auscultatory measurements were performed. Each type of measurement was performed 3 times intermittently.

Results: The mean wrist circumference was 14.43±0.22 cm and the mean mid-upper arm circumference was 21.43±0.55 cm. Mean SBP, DBP and MAP measured electronically on the wrist were 104.1±1.5, 65.6±1.3 and 78.1±1.3 mmHg, respectively, and mean SBP, DBP and MAP measured via auscultation were 99.3±1, 61.4±0.7 and 73.6±0.7 mmHg, respectively. Electronically-measured wrist MAP had significantly moderate correlations with mid-upper arm and wrist circumference (r:0.547, r:0.559, p<0.01).

Conclusions: Since the differences were less than 4 mmHg in both systolic and diastolic pressures between electronic wrist blood pressure (EWBP) measurement and auscultatory measurement, it appears that electronic measurement may be important in first line of blood pressure screening. Since it is easy and practical to use in the early period, it may be an alternative approach to auscultatory measurement among non-critical pediatric patients.