Use of home sphygmomanometers in Turkey: a nation-wide survey

The purposes of this study were to detect the prevalence of ownership of a home sphygmomanometer among hypertensive subjects through a nation-wide survey, to investigate parameters affecting ownership of a sphygmomanometer, to compare how home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) was actually used in daily practice with some aspects of the current guidelines, and to discuss what we implemented to increase the reliability of HBPM in a developing country. A total of 2747 hypertensive patients from 34 cities, representative of the Turkish population, were enrolled in the study. A multiple-choice questionnaire was administered to each participant using the computer-assisted telephone interviewing method. Among 2747 hypertensive patients, 1281 of them (46.6%) had a home sphygmomanometer. Most of the patients were using wrist devices. The factors associated with ownership of a sphygmomanometer were female gender, older age, obesity, higher educational status, higher income level, living in urban areas, awareness of hypertension and anti-hypertensive drug usage. Only 16% of the devices were used on the advice of a physician. The patients learned usage of their device mainly from the sellers and their relatives. The ownership of a home sphygmomanometer is common among hypertensive patients in Turkey, but regular monitoring of blood pressure before physician visits is rare despite common ownership of these devices. Daily practice of HBPM in Turkey was far from the recommendations of the current guidelines. More effort is needed to improve the reliability of HBPM.