The role of the measurement uncertainty and error in the blood pressure measurement

Abstract

The blood pressure measurement is a routinely procedure conducted in primary cares, health cares, pharmacies or even at home, by physicians in order to diagnosis hypertension, as well as by the users in order to administer medication. The sphygmomanometer is the instrument used to the procedure, however the indication of the blood pressure displayed is not always the true value of the measurement. Deviations due to measurement errors and uncertainties, an intrinsic component of all measuring devices, affect the indication, and consequently might affect the patient diagnosis. For example, a health patient can be diagnosed as hypertensive, demanding an unnecessary treatment. Then, the present study aims to investigate the impact of the measurement error and the uncertainty in misdiagnosis for hypertension. We applied a sphygmomanometer with well-known measurement error and uncertainty to a sample of patients with well-known blood pressure in order to identify how these parameters affect the result according to the instrument indication. The results show a misdiagnosis of 3.98%, for the diastolic and 4.29% for the systolic pressure, to the sphygmomanometer used in the simulations. The results show the importance of considering the metrological parameters for the diagnosis.