Can or should blood pressure be measured at pharmacy offices

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate concordance between blood-pressure (BP) measurements at the pharmacy office (PhO) and the nurse office (NO) in the health care centre (HCC). DESIGN: Descriptive study. SETTING: Community. METHODS: 36 PhO have voluntarily participated in the province of Albacete, where they have done 3 BP measures, without previous instructions and with their usual measurements devices, for 3-5 subjects, who were referred to their HCC so that they were taken another 3 BP measures in the NO with their Hg sphymomanometer and in their usual measure conditions (blind measures in relation to those taken at the PhO). These subjects were given a stamped envelope to send the BP measurements (taken at the NO), to the Official Pharmacy College. RESULTS: The 6 BP measurements have been completed to 96 subjects with an average of 57.3 years old (women 63%). The differences between PhO and NO were > 5 mmHg in 58 subjects (60.4%) in the case of SBP and in 45 subjects (46.9%) in the case of DBP, and it was more than 15 mmHg in the 17 subjects (17.7%) with SBP and in 9 subjects (9.4%) with DBP. The difference average was 9.5 mmHg (SD, 8.4 mmHg) and 6.4 mmHg (SD, 5.3 mmHg) respectively. The use rate of digit 0 was 22% at the PhO and 46.5% at the NO. In most of PhO, measurement electronic devices have been used for the BP, but not validated for clinical use. CONCLUSIONS: The PhO can be a good place for the hypertension screening, but the chemist must be trained in the BP correct measurement and use validated electronic devices. Standardization measurement conditions and the use of validated electronic devices must be extended to the NO.