Blood Pressure Smartphone App Fails to Beat Standard Self-Monitoring
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Here's another vote for less screen time. Using a smartphone application to track blood pressure won't lead to any greater reduction in BP than self-monitoring the old-fashioned way, a new study finds. "By itself, standard self-measured blood pressure (SMBP) has minimal effect on BP control," wrote lead author Mark J. Pletcher, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues in JAMA Internal Medicine. "To improve BP control, SMBP must be accompanied by patient feedback, counseling, or other cointerventions, and the BP-lowering effects of SMBP appear to be proportional to the intensity of the cointervention."
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@navin In the prospective randomized trial, patients with hypertension were randomly assigned to self-measure their blood pressure using a standard device that paired with a connected smartphone application or to self-measure their blood pressure with a standard device alone. Both groups achieved about an 11 mm Hg reduction in systolic BP over 6 months, reported similar levels of satisfaction with the monitoring process, and shared their readings with their physicians with similar frequency.