Chronic stress is directly linked to high blood pressure and physical health. The knock on effect of chronic stress is it can lead to a mental health breakdown. This evidence reveals that quantitative data of how a patient lives their life, the financial circumstances, and other factors like smoking, heavy drinking must be considered. Therefore,
it is necessary to establish if the person is under chronic stress before blood pressure measurements are taken. If stress induced elevation is not accounted for during blood pressure assessment, a significant proportion of individuals may be incorrectly classified as hypertensive. Because many UK GP practices rely on single clinic readings or unstructured home measurements—often taken while the patient is anxious, rushed, or under socioeconomic pressure—there is a substantial risk of over diagnosis.
This raises an important question: how many patients are being prescribed antihypertensive medication not because of true underlying pathology, but because their blood pressure was measured during a period of acute or chronic stress? Over prescription carries both clinical and economic consequences, including unnecessary medication exposure, avoidable side effects, and increased financial burden on the NHS. These concerns highlight the need for low stress, context independent assessment methods, such as handwriting based estimation, which may reduce misclassification and improve the accuracy of hypertension diagnosis.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4938117/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383211739_Impact_of_Chronic_Stress_on_Physical_and_Mental_Health_A_Detailed_Analysis