How is hypertension diagnosed?
Diagnosing hypertension requires more than a single raised reading in clinic. In this video, Dr Ravi Assomull explains how home and 24 hour blood pressure monitoring are used to confirm the diagnosis.
Learn more about High blood pressure or book a consultation with Dr Assomull – no GP referral needed, appointments typically within one working day.
Transcript
Hypertension is typically diagnosed when you have a screening measurement, typically as a medical or as a check-up with your GP. Now, it's important to say that a raised blood pressure in this setting needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, because approximately 25% of patients will have artifactually elevated blood pressures in a clinical setting. We refer to this as white coat hypertension.
To ensure that we make the diagnosis of hypertension robustly, we offer two further approaches. You may be asked to wear a 24-hour blood pressure monitor, which measures your blood pressure every half hour during the day and every hour during the night. We then take the average of that blood pressure and typically focus on the daytime readings to make the diagnosis of hypertension.
Conversely, if you prefer, you may wish to procure your own blood pressure monitor and check your blood pressure over the course of seven days, morning and evening. And once more, we take that average blood pressure reading to diagnose or refute the presence of hypertension.
