Why do some nurses guess on BP?

[Dixon, future NP]

Hello Everyone!

Why do some nurses guess when it comes to taking a blood pressure?

I am a patient, I am a CNA and CNA instructor. When I go to the doctor I do not share this information but it really bothers me when I see nurses make mistakes at the patients expense.

Yesterday I went to the doctor for a physical. I had my blood pressure checked by an LVN, a nurse, I was shocked that he guessed on my blood pressure. It took him about 30 seconds from placing the cuff to reading my BP. He didn't bother checking for brachial artery, stethoscope placement was wrong, blood pressure cuff placement was wrong and in my opinion BP was just a guess based on looking at sphygmomanometer. We all know that you cannot get an accurate blood pressure reading this way.

I tried to be very nice about it by saying my blood pressure is never that high, can you please re take it? He did but he did it the same way as the first time.

Please explain if you know, is reading a blood pressure that hard?

[DSkelton711]

If the cuff is placed to where the bladder will occlude the brachial artery sufficiently, the cuff size is appropriate, the sphyg is on zero before you pump, and you make sure to go 20mm above the last sound, don't overly rush (or go too slow either), and are able to recognize sounds and record them, I feel pretty confident. Some folks brachial pulse is very hard to deterrmine without a stethescope. I don't like to use digitals unless I make sure to check every so often with a manual and they are fairly compatible. I can do a BP in under 30 seconds. If you are taking along time to do the actual check, IMHO, I wonder if that affects the true BP. My 2 cents. Oh, and I always make sure they have their arm relaxed as that will make the BP falsely higher.

[DLStango, BSN, RN]

Totally agree! You HAVE to look at the gauge to get your reading. I, too, hate the auto cuffs. Technology is great, but I just never like them. When I teach clinicals at the hospital I always have my students use manual cuffs

[GypsyJen]

I am so glad that my work uses manual bp cuffs. As a new CNA, I learned how to get an accurate reading pretty fast this way. But it does make you wonder, if automatic bp cuffs aren't better than the manual ones, how come every hospital uses them? Oh, and I've found, because of having to use our crappy stethoscopes at work, that a good one makes all the difference in the world!!