A survey has found that seven out of 10 hypertension patients in Korea do not measure their blood pressure at home.
It is important to know and practice the correct method to measure blood pressure at home because home measurement of blood pressure is useful for managing BP and improving patients’ drug compliance, eagerness to receive treatment, and blood pressure control rate, according to the Korea Society of Hypertension.
Home Blood Pressure Forum under the society said Wednesday that it had conducted the awareness of measuring blood pressure at home on 1,000 hypertension patients 30 and older for the first time in five years.
The number of hypertensive people jumped from about 11 million in 2016 to 12.6 million in 2021. High blood pressure demonstrates few symptoms in the early phase but causes complications in various organs over time, the society said
The survey result showed that 655 respondents, or 65.5 percent, were aware of home blood pressure checks, up 4.9 percentage points from five years ago.
The share of patients who measure their blood pressure climbed from 31.4 percent (314 patients) in 2017 to 35.5 percent in 2022. In contrast, 64.5 percent answered they do not measure blood pressure at home.
Among those who do so, 80.2 percent said the home checks helped treat hypertension. As to why, 81.4 percent said they could know changes in blood pressure, 47.4 percent said it helped them set BP control targets, and 37.5 percent said they could confirm the efficacy of their treatment.
As to why they don’t, the respondents said they do not have a home blood pressure gauge (47.8 percent), thought it sufficient to measure it at hospitals (19.5 percent), and found it cumbersome and inconvenient (13.8 percent).
“Three of 10 Koreans aged 30 or more have hypertension. High blood pressure does not have clear symptoms but is a frightening disease that greatly increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases and their death risks,” said Kim Cheol-ho, head of the forum and a professor at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital’s Medical Center for Older Adults.
Measuring blood pressure at home is important because it can monitor blood pressure at the same hour belts along with high reproducibility and serve as standards to judge “white coat hypertension and masked hypertension” that are difficult to discern based only on treatment room checks, he added.
“The survey has confirmed higher awareness of home measurement of blood pressure than five years ago, but the share of people who do so is still low,” Kim said. “Our society will continue to conduct campaigns to raise awareness and spread accurate measuring methods for more effective management of high blood pressure.”