Developing students’ knowledge about blood pressure measurement: An action research enquiry

Accurate blood pressure recording is of paramount importance for patient safety and with the advent of automated recording devices the skill of manual blood pressure recording has been reported to have decreased. However, in some settings manual blood pressure recording is required and so competency development requires robust underpinning knowledge. An action research enquiry was undertaken with pre-registration student nurses in a North West UK university setting regarding their underpinning knowledge related to a specific aspect of manual blood pressure recording. The focus of the enquiry was to evaluate the impact of a taught session as an intervention to understand Korotkoff sounds and their importance for accurate blood pressure recording. A pre and post learning session quiz was used to establish baseline knowledge and knowledge enhancement around the intervention. The findings of this small-scale study were that students demonstrated knowledge improvement in specific question.