title: Effects of room environment and nursing experience on clinical blood pressure measurement: an observational study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to examine the effects of measurement room environment and nursing experience on the accuracy of manual auscultatory blood pressure (BP) measurement.
  
  
  METHODS
  A training database with 32 Korotkoff sounds recordings from the British Hypertension Society was played randomly to 20 observers who were divided into four groups according to the years of their nursing experience (i.e. ≥10 years, 1-9 years, nursing students with frequent training, and those without any medical background; five observers in each group). All the observers were asked to determine manual auscultatory systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) both in a quiet clinical assessment room and in a noisy nurse station area. This procedure was repeated on another day, yielding a total of four measurements from each observer (i.e. two room environments and two repeated determinations on 2 separate days) for each Korotkoff sound. The measurement error was then calculated against the reference answer, with the effects of room environment and nursing experience of the observer investigated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our results showed that there was no statistically significant difference for BPs measured under both quiet and noisy environments (P>0.80 for both SBP and DBP). However, there was a significant effect on the measurement accuracy between the observer groups (P<0.001 for both SBP and DBP). The nursing students performed best with overall SBP and DBP errors of -0.8±2.4 and 0.1±1.8 mmHg, respectively. The SBP measurement error from the nursing students was significantly smaller than that for each of the other three groups (all P<0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results indicate that frequent nursing trainings are important for nurses to achieve accurate manual auscultatory BP measurement.
authors.affiliation: aThe Center of Gerontology and Geriatrics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu bDepartment of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, People's Republic of China cHealth and Wellbeing Academy, Faculty of Medical Science, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xuemei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Birong
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Aiqing
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Dingchang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zheng
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001794:Blood Pressure; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination; D009726:Nurses; D010362:Patients' Rooms