Effect of an educational program for the knowledge and quality of blood pressure recording

OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the effect of an educational program on blood pressure recording for nursing professionals in relation to theoretical knowledge and the quality of these records. METHOD: quasi-experimental study conducted in a hospital service located in the city of São Paulo. The theoretical knowledge of 101 professionals was measured using a validated questionnaire before and after the educational intervention; the quality of blood pressure records was evaluated using a validated form which was applied to 354 records in the pre-intervention period and 288 in the post-intervention period. The educational program was based on active teaching-learning methodologies and consisted of two strategies: expository/dialogue class and a board game. The Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, Fisher and Chi-Square tests were used for comparisons, adopting a level of significance of α=0.05. RESULTS: the median of the professionals’ scores increased from 19 to 22 points in the post-intervention period (p<0.001). There was an improvement in the quality of the blood pressure recordings regarding the variables: cuff size (p<0.001), arm used in the procedure (p<0.001) and patient position (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: the educational program showed positive results in the promotion of knowledge among nursing professionals and in the improvement of the quality of blood pressure recording.