Background: To investigate the relationship between anxiety and white coat hypertension (WCH) using the hospital anxiety and depression scale-anxiety (HADS-A) score.

Methods: Participants lacking a pre-existing diagnosis of hypertension but displaying increased office blood pressure were included in this study. Subsequently, they were classified as either newly diagnosed sustained hypertension (SustHT) or white coat hypertension (WCH) patients, as determined by 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring measurements. The assessment of their anxiety levels was conducted using the HADS-A questionnaire. We performed regression, comparative, and sensitivity analyses to elucidate the association between anxiety and WCH.

Results: In this cohort of 303 consecutive individuals (mean age 54 years, 46% female), 81 (26.7%) patients were diagnosed with WCH. Those with WCH were younger (49 vs. 56 years, P < .001), had higher heart rate (85 vs. 76 bpm, P < .001) and exhibited a female predominance (56% vs. 43%, P = .049) compared to individuals with SustHT. The HADS-A was higher in WCH than in SustHT (9.0 ± 2.9 vs. 6.6 ± 2.6, P < .001). Furthermore, HADS-A showed positive correlation with systolic and diastolic pressures measured in the out-patient clinic (r = 0.523 and r = 0.387, respectively; P < .001 for both). The full model with HADS-A had better discriminatory power (Harrell’s c-index 0.82 vs. 0.77, P = .0025), increased calibration, and a greater net benefit than the base model without. The ROC curve analysis, using a cut-off of >6 for HADS-A, demonstrated a sensitivity of 76.5% and specificity of 53.6% in detecting WCH (Area Under the Curve = 0.72, P < .001).

Conclusions: Our study revealed that individuals with WCH, in comparison to those with SustHT, exhibit a higher level of anxiety as indicated by HADS-A.