Correlation between Clinc and

Ambulatory blood pressure

measurement: diagnosis and
monitoring of hypertension

Hamdani A, Bayar MF, Ajra Z, Gheni R,

Rashikou L, Ben Hamida R, Ounissi T, Ibn
Elhadj Z
Mohamed Taher Maamouri University Hospital, Nabeul

Introduction
Blood pressure (BP) measurements taken in the clinic provide limited information about
the BP load. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) provide a more
comprehensive assessment of blood pressure over the course of a day. This study
examined the correlation between clinic and ambulatory BP measurements.
Method
We collated clinic and 24 hour ambulatory BP data from the outpatient cardiology clinic
of Mohamed Taher Maamouri University hospital in Nabeul (n=100). We used the
Pearson correlation coefficient (r) to measure the strength of the relationship between
these two measurements methods.
Results
The average age of our population was 59.14±13.12 years (range 21-92 years), composed
of 47 women and 53 men. The most frequent reason for carrying out ABPM was the
monitoring of hypertensive patients in 84% of cases, 16% were done to confirm the
diagnosis of hypertension. ABPM confirmed the diagnosis of hypertension in 62.5% and
detected 18.75% isolated nocturnal hypertension in patients with suspected hypertension
and 14.3% masked uncontrolled nocturnal hypertension in hypertensive patients.
Concordance was found in 66% of cases between clinic measurement and the 24-hour
MAPA data. There was a weak correlation between clinic systolic BP and 24-hour
ambulatory systolic BP (P <0.001; r= 0.349) and moderate correlation between clinic
diastolic BP and 24-hour ambulatory diastolic BP (P <0.001; r= 0.566). (Figure1)

Figure 1: Correlation between ambulatory blood pressure measurement and office measurement of systolic blood
pressure (curve A: r=0.349) and diastolic blood pressure (curve B: r=0.566)

Conclusion
The correlation between these two methods is not weak mainly explained by variation of
BP especially at night detected by ABPM which remains the reference method for
diagnosing and monitoring hypertension.