Developing a Protocol for Medical Student-Organized Community-Based Hypertension Screening Programs

Background: Hypertension screening programs have been effective in raising awareness and identifying people who are otherwise unfamiliar with their disease. We aimed to develop a resource-minimal, evidence-based protocol for a novel medical student-organized hypertension-screening program capable of community implementation. Methods: Eighty-one medical students had their blood pressure measured once using an automated machine and once using the manual auscultatory method. Bland-Altman plots compared agreement between measurement techniques. Results: No significant difference between manual and automated techniques was noted in the measurement of systolic blood pressure, but was noted for diastolic blood pressure. Conclusions: In the context of a community-based screening program, automated and manual measurements may be used interchangeably to obtain an accurate measure of systolic blood pressure. A medical student-organized community-screening program is an effective way to screen large numbers of people in a short amount of time.