A blood pressure test is a method to measure the pressure which blood in a particular creature's body exerts on the inner surface of the body's arteries during circulation.

The device used to measure blood pressure is called a sphygmomanometer. It is connected to a hand-operated bulb pump and a cuff which wraps around patient's arm.

The patient is put in a sitting or inclined position, with the cuff placed around the arm of the patient in such a way that it is on the same plane as his/her heart. The cuff is inflated, and then allowed to undergo deflation. The reading is noted down from the display, in '[systolic pressure]/ [diastolic pressure]' format.

In case of a mechanical (non-electronic) sphygmomanometer, the cuff needs to be inflated while a stethoscope remains placed on the artery, until the artery becomes blocked, and only silence registers in the stethoscope. Then, the cuff is inflated by 10 mmHg above the point at which any sound registered in the stethoscope, and the valve is released at a rate of 5 mmHg per second. Eventually, a thumping sound registers, at which point the systolic pressure is noted, and the diastolic pressure is noted at the point when the sound stops.