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White Coat Hypertension: Definition, Terminology and Prevalence

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Abstract

The medical visit, or more in general the situation of being in a clinical environment, often leads the patient to experience an alerting reaction and a transient increase in blood pressure (BP) levels [1–3], known as the “white coat effect” [4]. This represents a major problem associated with BP measurement in clinical practice, as it prevents BP measures obtained in the clinic from accurately reflecting the “true” subject’s blood pressure values. Although the first description of this phenomenon was performed by the end of the nineteenth century [5], it was thanks to the observations made by studies implementing sophisticated systems for continuous BP monitoring in ambulatory conditions that the nature and mechanisms responsible for the pressor response to the medical visit could be better understood [1, 3]. These pioneering studies not only provided direct and precise quantitative assessment of the BP rise associated with the doctor’s visit but also indicated that it is the alerting reaction and not the cuff inflation at the moment of BP measurement that causes this pressor response [1, 6].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cardiovascular Neural and Metabolic Sciences, S. Luca Hospital, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Piazza Brescia, 20, 20149, Milan, Italy

    Gianfranco Parati MD, FESC, Juan Eugenio Ochoa, Carolina Lombardi & Grzegorz Bilo

  2. Department of Health Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Gianfranco Parati MD, FESC & Juan Eugenio Ochoa

Authors
  1. Gianfranco Parati MD, FESC
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  2. Juan Eugenio Ochoa
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  3. Carolina Lombardi
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  4. Grzegorz Bilo
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Correspondence to Gianfranco Parati MD, FESC .

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Parati, G., Ochoa, J.E., Lombardi, C., Bilo, G. (2015). White Coat Hypertension: Definition, Terminology and Prevalence. In: White Coat Hypertension. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07410-8_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07410-8_1

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