HealthDay reports, “Regular blood pressure readings at home are more accurate for diagnosing high blood pressure than those taken at a doctor’s office.”

This is according to findings from a study including “510 adults at high risk of developing high blood pressure.

They were divided into groups who got blood pressure readings in three different ways:

• at home;
• in a clinic; or
• at kiosks in pharmacies and other locations.

Investigators “found that blood pressure readings taken at home were consistent with ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM),” but significantly less expensive.

“Blood pressure varies a lot over the day … and one or two measurements in clinic may not reflect your average blood pressure,” said study author Dr. Beverly Green, a senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. “Home blood pressure monitoring allows you to collect many more readings and average these.”

Before you purchase a home blood pressure monitor, it’s important to know that not all of them are validated or accurate. See my blog: Is your blood pressure measurement device validated?

The results were published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

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