Table 1.

Blood pressure variability indices, measures and methodology

Index/Parameter of BPV	Proposed by	Methodology	Comments/Results
Standard deviation (SD)	Clement et al68	BPV assessment using SD and CoV was performed in 70 untreated hypertensive patients	When assessing BPV, SD depended more on BP level than CoV. Sympathetic activity also correlated with BP and the SD of BP but not with CoV
Coefficient of variation (CoV)	Mancia et al69	Continuous intra‐arterial pressure recordings	SD, but not CoV, was highly dependent on the BP level
Weighted SD	Bilo et al70	Weighted SD is the difference between MMD (maximum minus minimum BP) and ARV (average real variability). These were measured by ABPM and represent the mean of day and night SD values weighted for the number of hours covered by these two periods. ARV is the average of the absolute differences between consecutive readings, weighted for the between‐reading time intervals and accounting for the order of the BP recordings	Weighted SD also depends on the BP level
Variability independent of the mean (VIM)	Rothwell et al34	VIM is the within‐subject SD derived from the within‐subject mean BP to the power of x and multiplied by the population mean BP to the power x (the power x is obtained by fitting a curve through a plot of SD against mean BP level, using a model where SD = a × meanx, where x is derived by non‐linear regression)	VIM correlated best with indices and outcomes associated with BPV, rather than BP

ABPM, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring; BP, blood pressure; BPV, blood pressure variability.