Práticas e recursos adotados para medida de pressão arterial indireta por profissionais da equipe de enfermagem nos serviços de saúde: uma revisão integrativa

Abstract

Blood pressure (BP), as a vital sign, can indicate a patient's health status and the body's ability to regulate itself. Thus, BP measurement is a mandatory procedure in any healthcare setting and can be performed by various healthcare professionals, primarily by the nursing team. In this context, the study aimed to identify, in the literature, the practices and resources adopted for indirect blood pressure measurement by nursing professionals in healthcare services. The guiding question formulated was: "What practices and resources are adopted for the measurement and recording of indirect blood pressure by nursing professionals in healthcare services?" An integrative review was conducted through consultations to the following databases: Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS), Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health (CINAHL), National Library of Medicine (PubMed), SciVerse Scopus TopCited (Scopus), and Web of Science. Due to the scarcity of available materials, additional searches were conducted in the references and authors of the studies to increase the sample size of the review. To map the most updated literature, a time frame of 10 years was set. Original articles on BP measurement in humans, specifically in adult and elderly populations, published in Portuguese, English, or Spanish were included. Studies on pregnant women were excluded. The final sample of the review consisted of seven scientific articles. The studies revealed that BP measurement is predominantly indirect, using the auscultatory method, with manual sphygmomanometers and stethoscopes being the most commonly used resources. Moreover, it was noted that the studies employed validated instruments to assess the knowledge of professionals who perform BP measurements, such as the "Instrument for Evaluation of Blood Pressure Measurement Skills" by Tibúrcio et al. (2015). Incongruities in the technical execution were also identified, as well as knowledge deficits regarding the theoretical framework underlying BP measurement practice. The research highlighted weaknesses in the subject, considering that the amount of studies on the topic is still limited.