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Checking blood pressure annually instead of at every outpatient office visit may improve the screening test's ability to correctly identify those without hypertension (specificity) without sacrificing its ability to identify those with hypertension (sensitivity).
Comparing the usual screening practice of checking blood pressure at every visit with a second strategy that used only annual blood pressure measurements in a group of 440 adults over a five year study period, researchers found the reduced frequency of screening produced a significant decrease in the false-positive rate from 30 percent to 18 percent of nonhypertensive patients.
They found no statistically significant difference in sensitivity between the two methods. In their analysis, the authors point out that when applied to the roughly 2,000 healthy adults cared for by a typical family physician, the annual screening strategy results in 232 fewer patients needing further workup over five years.
They conclude that in addition to improving the false-positive rate, reducing the number of unnecessary blood pressure screenings in healthy adults provides other benefits, including increasing clinic efficiency, reducing clerical burdens, and allowing sufficient clinical staff time to more accurately measure blood pressures.
Screening For Hypertension Annually Compared With Current Practice By Gregory M. Garrison, MD, MS and Sara Oberhelman, MD, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.