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Sunday, September 26, 2010

Title: Research at the Bedside: Comparison of Blood Pressure Measurements

Candace L. Rouse, RNC, MSN, CNS-BC , Obstetrics, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD
Lynn M. Harris, RN, BSN , Obstetrics, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD

Discipline: Women’s Health (WH), Childbearing (CB), Advanced Practice (AP)

Learning Objectives:
  1. Recognize the need for critical thinking in demonstrating evidence based practice with a specific design model
  2. Identify the need for a study to compare blood pressure measurement in the population studied
  3. Discuss barriers for success as well as the potential impact of this study
Submission Description:
It is always desirable to bring nursing research to the bedside; thus making research meaningful to the direct care nurse. Encouraging critical thinking by utilizing a problem solving approach has been shown to impact nurses’ utilization of research. Implementing evidence- based practice demonstrates that problem solving approach which disavows a reliance on “the way things have always been done”.            The Rosswurm and Larrabee Model for evidence based practice mimics the traditional nursing process of assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation; thus making it a logical model for the direct care nurse to use in the design and evaluation of evidence-based practice change.            Building on this problem solving approach to change practice; the staff on Mother/Baby (MB) at an urban Mid Atlantic hospital who care for antepartum and postpartum patients accepted the challenge to demonstrate research at the bedside in maternal blood pressure measurement. The problem that they investigated is one of the most accurate method of blood pressure measurement. With the rise in obesity in the United States, blood pressures are increasingly being taken on the forearm, but are forearm blood pressures interchangeable with the upper arm blood pressure? With advances in technology, automated blood pressure machines are utilized for measurement, but is this technology the most correct for this vulnerable population?            This presentation will expound on the Rosswurm & Larrabee model, give a background on hypertension in pregnancy, as well as describe the research design and results. Implications for nursing in general, as well as for the pregnant population will be discussed.