Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To evaluate pharmacy students' skills at measuring brachial artery blood pressure and radial heart rate at the completion of a patient assessment course in the second-professional year of a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) program. METHODS: Students enrolled in a required patient assessment laboratory course (n = 83) participated in this study. Each student was randomly matched with a classmate and manually measured the classmate's blood pressure by auscultation of the brachial artery and heart rate by palpation of the radial pulse. RESULTS: The student-device absolute disagreement was 6.5 +/- 4.8 mmHg for systolic blood pressure (SBP), 6.2 +/- 4.5 mmHg for diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and 5.3 +/- 4.0 beats per minute (BPM) for heart rate. Student and machine measurements of SBP, DBP, and HR significantly correlated. CONCLUSIONS: Pharmacy students in the second-professional year of a PharmD program demonstrated competence in but not mastery of manual blood pressure and heart rate measurement. These skills need further refinement during third- and fourth-professional year APPEs.