Newbie Question: Blood Pressure...?

llg, PhD, RN · Jan 20, 2009

Ask your instructor prior to the skill check-off. Always be sure you know what the actual person who is doing the check or giving the test wants before you take the test. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble that way. By relying on others, you might find that there is disagreement on some of those things and end up failing the check-off or exam because you "took a vote" on a public bulletin board rather than getting the desired answer from the horse's mouth.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jan 20, 2009

there are several websites that explain how to take blood pressures including a virtual blood pressure cuff from ohio state university that has sound where you can practice listening and taking online blood pressures. see post #35 on the any good iv therapy or nursing procedure web sites of this sticky thread: https://allnurses.com/nursing-student-assistance/any-good-iv-127657.html

S.T.A.C.E.Y, LPN · Jan 20, 2009

I've ALWAYS been taught that it goes by what you hear. Sometimes if you can't hear where at first, you watch the needle for some indication of where you SHOULD be hearing the sound, then listen closer.

As the previous poster said though, ask the prof just in case. Nursing school is mostly about towing the party line, so if the prof that is testing you insists it goes by the bouncing needle, just do as she says for the test.

shrimpchips, LPN · Jan 22, 2009

I have always been taught on what you hear, NOT by the needle bouncing. There was an interactive blood pressure cuff tutorial at our computer lab and it was the same. Of course you need will still need to practice deflating the cuff correctly (you don't want to get false highs/lows!), but this website has an interactive blood pressure cuff where you hear the sounds and you have to determine the systolic and diastolic values:

http://medicine.osu.edu/exam/

janbug · Jan 22, 2009

I agree with what llg said. Your classmates are not the one checking you off, so I would make sure to know the correct procedure (method) that your instructor wants to see you use during checkoffs.

fwiw I always go by what I hear and don't go by the needle bouncing.

RochesterRN-BSN, BSN, RN · Jan 22, 2009

In agreement as well here---I go by and was taught to go by the first sound you HEAR being systolic and when you can no longer hear the diastolic but as said previously what we (and you soon enough) do in the "real world" and what is the text book answer may not always be the same.So ask the teacher. I will give the same advice with the NCLEX. Some of my peers in nursing school were saying they wanted to work for a few months before they take the NCLEX to do better on it.......to me that just clouds the mind trying to remember what you learned in school vs. in real practice. So I suggest taking the exam as soon as you can after school leaving just a period of time to study. I took mine like 3 and 1/2 weeks after graduation. I used the time to study only and started working like a day or two after I took the test. On the NCLEX they want the textbook answers. ....also do as many pracice questions as you can and I even used the NCLEX question books to study for my exams during school and found there were a lot of questions that were almost exactly the same.

Good luck !!!!