The main purpose of this article was to determine the prognostic ability of the self‑measurement of blood pressure (SMBP) levels with and without the first-day readings (12 and 8 readings).
The self-measurement of blood pressure levels consists in taking two blood pressure readings in the morning and two more at night for a total of three days.
One of the main results that we observed in this study was that, in terms of total mortality, there were no statistically significant differences between blood pressure levels calculated with and without the first-day measurements. Although the recommended protocol for SMBP states that the blood pressure measurements made on the first day should be eliminated, based on the results of this study, we recommend not eliminating these first-day measurements considering that the ability to prognosticate death shows no differences when the calculation is made without these first-day measurements.