Originalarbeit · Original Article

Beat-to-Beat Blood Pressure Biofeedback as a Supplementary Treatment for Arterial Hypertension Introduction: A lack of studies on the effects of continuous blood pressure biofeedback led to the development of a screening and feedback software allowing for a ‘beat-to-beat’ representation of arterial blood pressure. Through this method patients find that they can exert some control of their blood pressure. Patients and Methods: For evaluation purposes a pilot study was conducted with 84 hypertensive patients at the Klinik Höhenried, Germany. Two experimental groups which received the normal treatment program of the hospital and an additional 2 (20 patients) or 3–6 (22 patients) biofeedback sessions, respectively, were compared with one control group treated additionally with pseudo biofeedback (20 patients) and another control group (22 patients) which underwent the clinic program without biofeedback. Results: Both experimental groups yielded significantly more markedly blood pressure reductions (MAP) than the controls (p = 0.001), but patients who received 3–6 feedback sessions did not perform significantly better than patients who received only 2 sessions (p = 0.517). Conclusions: 2 sessions of feedback treatment can already have clinically relevant effects. This suggests a major influence of cognitive processes such as self-effectiveness and self-control. Schlüsselwörter Biofeedback · Arterieller Blutdruck · Essentielle Hypertonie · Kontinuierliche Messung