Influence of stress induced by the first announced state of emergency due to coronavirus disease 2019 on outpatient blood pressure management in Japan

To prevent further spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Japanese government announced a state of emergency, resulting in major stress for the population. The aim of this study was to investigate a possible association between changes in daily stress and blood pressure (BP) in Japanese patients. We retrospectively investigated 748 patients with chronic disease who were treated by the Sagamihara Physicians Association to determine changes in stress during the COVID-19 state of emergency from 7 April to 31 May 2020. During the state of emergency, office BP significantly increased from 136.5 ± 17.5/78.2 ± 12.0 to 138.6 ± 18.6/79.0 ± 12.2 (p p = 0.03, respectively). In contrast, home BP significantly decreased from 128.2 ± 10.3/75.8 ± 8.8 to 126.9 ± 10.2/75.2 ± 9.0 (p p = 0.01, respectively), and the ratio of white coat hypertension was significantly increased (p