Manual BP - even or odd

[Nonono1]

Question for you all.

When taking a manual BP, is it appropriate to have a reading end in an odd number?

The general consensus is "always evens", but, I remember one professor emphatically stating that if you see the needle between the lines that is the reading, an odd number, else is falsifying.

Opinions?

[LunarSkyRN]

While you can get an odd number reading, the rule of thumb is to round up to the even.

For instance, you get a reading of 115/62. The correct BP to document would be 116/62.

[GM2RN]

While you can get an odd number reading, the rule of thumb is to round up to the even.

For instance, you get a reading of 115/62. The correct BP to document would be 116/62.

Why is that "correct."

I've never heard of such a thing. What I read is what I document. Why is this any different from an automatic BP that reads an odd number, or do you round those too?

[bossman]

If a patients BP is 115/91 they will die a horrible death if you repot it as 116/92 so PLEASE report what you find.

[BonnieSc]

Manual BP cuffs are designed to read only even numbers. Automatics can read odd or even. "Falsifying" because the needle fell between two marks, so you write 116 instead of 115? Please.

Always do what your professor says when you're with your professor, though.

I remember my first day of clinical using an automatic BP machine and charting the result without thinking too much about it... then later freaking out because I remembered my instructor saying BPs were always even, so when my result was odd, does that mean I'd charted it incorrectly??? Was I going to get kicked out for poor documentation??? (They hadn't trained us on automatic BP in skills lab, so I had no idea.)