Accuracy of Sphygmomanometers Measurements in two Iranian Tertiary Educational Hospitals

Background: Accurate blood pressure measurement has more importance in diagnosis, assessment of cardiovascular risk and efficacy of antihypertensive agents in hypertensive patients. Objectives: Present study was designed for sphygmomanometers accuracy assessment in two study hospitals. Materials and Methods: During the present cross sectional study, accuracy of 63 sphygmomanometers from two study hospitals was evaluated. Sphygmomanometer evaluation was performed according researcher prepared check list contains most of possible physical and functional defects. Accuracy detection in randomly selected sphygmomanometers was performed by comparison with one standard mercury sphygmomanometer. More than three mmhg pressure differences in two points or more than ten mmhg pressure difference in one point were considered as inaccurate sphygmomanometer. Results: Among sphygmomanometers, 25 (39.6%) devices had excluded due to physical defects. Air leak (15.9%) was most cause of sphygmomanometers exclusion from the study. According study accuracy determination method, among 38 sphygmomanometers, 21 (55.27%) devices were inaccurate and 17 (44.82%) devices were accurate. All of three mercury sphygmomanometers were accurate. Mean of errors in included sphygmomanometers was 4.98 mmhg and 34.2% of included sphygmomanometers in one point accuracy determination had more than 10 mmhg differences with standard sphygmomanometer. Conclusions: Current devices in our health care centers were inaccurate in most cases and might report wrong number as patients’ blood pressure.