White Coat Syndrome

What is white coat syndrome?

What is white coat syndrome? It’s when someone’s blood pressure is higher than their baseline while in a clinical setting, such as a physician office, outpatient facility or the hospital. Typically, these health care settings include practitioners who wear white lab jackets or “white coats”.

There are many reasons why white coat syndrome may happen. You might already be anxious about going to a physician appointment, or maybe you have had episodes of high blood pressure (hypertension) before, which makes you worry even more that you may have a higher reading in the clinical setting. After all, no one wants to hear the physician say “your blood pressure is too high”. This anxiety causes your blood pressure to spike by increasing your heart rate and constricting your blood vessels. Your blood pressure may return to normal once the anxiety subsides.

Tips to reduce this phenomenon include: asking to sit quietly for 3-5 minutes prior to having your blood pressure checked, practicing slow, deep breathing and guided imagery, and emptying your bladder just prior to the appointment. If you know you usually feel anxious during visits to a clinical setting, ask a family member or friend to accompany you; this support can help you feel more relaxed.

You can also check your blood pressure at home during regular intervals (keep in mind that there are do’s and don’ts for using a blood pressure monitor at home to be sure your results are accurate, so obtain education on this first) and document the results. There are plenty of great apps that will make this an easy task. Share these results with your health care practitioner as it will be helpful information to determine if you have consistently high blood pressure readings or if you could be experiencing white coat syndrome.