• L Thijs, J A Staessen, H Celis, R Fagard, P De Cort, R de Gaudemaris, I Enström, Y Imai, S Julius, J Ménard, D Mion, P Palatini, J Rosenfeld, D Shapiro, D Spence, and G Stergiou.
• Study Coordinating Centre, Hypertension and Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Unit, Department of Molecular and Cardiovascular Research, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
• Blood Press Monit. 1999 Apr 1;4(2):77-86.

ObjectivesTo pool data from individual subjects in an attempt to determine an operational threshold for making clinical decisions based on the self-recorded blood pressure (SRBP) and to examine how many hypertensive subjects, diagnosed by conventional blood pressure (CBP) measurement, would have a self-recorded blood pressure within the normotensive range if the proposed thresholds were applied.Data SourcesThirteen research groups studied 4668 untreated subjects.ResultsIn total 2401 subjects were normotensive, 494 were borderline hypertensive and 1773 were definitely hypertensive. Hypertension had been diagnosed from the mean of 1-6 (median 3) CBP measurements obtained during 1-3 (median 1) visits. The reference values for SRBP measurements determined from the 95th percentiles of the distributions for normotensive subjects were 137 mmHg systolic and 85 mmHg diastolic. Of the subjects with systolic hypertension, 16% had systolic SRBP ConclusionsUntil the relationship between SRBP and the incidence of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has been clarified further by prospective studies, a mean self-recorded blood pressure above 137 mmHg systolic or 85 mmHg diastolic may be considered hypertensive. Among the hypertensive patients 16-31% had SRBP below these thresholds, but this proportion decreased if the hypertensive subjects had higher CBP.

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