Although noise is known to negatively affect blood pressure (BP) measurements, its impact on different BP measurement methods remains unclear. The aim of this study is to compare the agreement of oscillometric and auscultatory BP measurement methods under in-ambulance noise levels.

This method-comparison study was conducted on 50 healthy volunteers in a tertiary emergency department (ED). Participants were divided into two groups of 25, and BP was measured using auscultatory and oscillometric methods in noisy and ambient environments by 2 emergency medicine technicians (EMT). The primary object of the study was to compare the agreement of auscultatory mercury sphygmomanometers and automated auscillometric BP measurements in ambient and noisy environments.

We examined the agreement between auscultative and oscillometric measurements of BP conducted in an ambient environment (46.75 [IQR (41.2--55.18)] dB) and found that both systolic and diastolic BP were within the level of agreement (LoA) established before the study (systolic BP [−13.96 to 8.48 mmHG], diastolic BP [−7.44 to 8.08 mmHg]); whereas, in noisy environment (92.35 [IQR 88–96.55] dB) both systolic and diastolic BP were outside the range of LoA (systolic BP [−37.77 to 9.94 mmHg], diastolic BP [−21.73 to 16.37 mmHg]). Additionally, we found that in ambient environments, concordance correlation coefficients were higher than in noisy environments (0.943 [0.906–0.966], 0.957 [0.93–0.974]; 0.574 [0.419–0.697], 0.544 [0.326–0.707]; systolic and diastolic BP, respectively).

The results of this study demonstrate that noise significantly affects the agreement between oscillometric and auscultatory blood pressure measurement methods.