Evaluation of pharmacy students' blood pressure and heart rate measurement skills after completion of a patient assessment course.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate pharmacy students' skills at measuring brachial artery blood pressure and radial heart rate at the completion of a patient assessment course in the second-professional year of a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) program.


METHODS
Students enrolled in a required patient assessment laboratory course (n = 83) participated in this study. Each student was randomly matched with a classmate and manually measured the classmate's blood pressure by auscultation of the brachial artery and heart rate by palpation of the radial pulse.


RESULTS
The student-device absolute disagreement was 6.5 +/- 4.8 mmHg for systolic blood pressure (SBP), 6.2 +/- 4.5 mmHg for diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and 5.3 +/- 4.0 beats per minute (BPM) for heart rate. Student and machine measurements of SBP, DBP, and HR significantly correlated.


CONCLUSIONS
Pharmacy students in the second-professional year of a PharmD program demonstrated competence in but not mastery of manual blood pressure and heart rate measurement. These skills need further refinement during third- and fourth-professional year APPEs.
McCall
Kenneth L
KL
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, School of Pharmacy, Amarillo, Texas 79106, USA. ken.mccall@ttuhsc.edu
Raehl
Cynthia
C
Nelson
Sherida
S
Haase
Krystal
K
Fike
David S
DS
D001794:Blood Pressure; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards*; D004512:Education, Pharmacy / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D013339:Students, Pharmacy