Background: The aim of this study was to test two of the same models of portable automatic devices for monitoring blood pressure over 24 hours. These devices were the Spacelabs 5200 (Kontron 1 and Kontron 2).
Methods: A mercury shygmomanometer was used as reference measurer. To validate Kontron 1, 22 persons (10 males and 12 females) of 45 +/- 12 years of age were selected. For Kontron 2, 25 subjects (12 males and 13 females) of 44 +/- 17 years of age were chosen.
Results: The results expressed as arithmetic mean and standard deviation were (manual vs Kontron 1); systolic blood pressure (SBP) 139 +/- 19 mmHg vs 135 +/- 16 mmHg, p less than 0.05; diastolic (DBP) 96 +/- 12 mmHg vs 93 +/- 12 mmHg, p less than 0.05, heart rate (HR) 77 +/- 13 ppm vs 76 +/- 14 ppm, NS. The correlation between the two methods was: SBP r = 0.870; DBP r = 0.875 and HR r = 0.949. The results of Kontron 2 were: SBP 137 +/- 17 mmHg vs 130 +/- 15 mmHg, p less than 0.05; DBP 93 +/- 11 mmHg vs 94 +/- 11 mmHg, NS; HR 75 +/- 10 ppm vs 73 +/- 12 ppm, NS. The correlations were: SBPr = 0.820; DBP r = 0.877 and HR r = 0.847.
Conclusions: The Spacelabs 5200 automatic blood pressure monitoring underestimates systolic blood pressure while diastolic blood pressure and heart rate are reliable according to international norms.