The Effect of Training Medical Students in Blood Pressure Measurement on Their Performance: a before-after study

Abstract

We evaluated the impact of guidelines based educational intervention on the improvement of blood pressure (BP) determination in fourth-year Iranian medical students. Methods: Using consecutive sampling techniques, 103 fourth-year medical students were recruited during their rotation in the department of community and family medicine of Tabriz medical school. All students attended a 3-hour-long course of accurate BP measurement. Using a valid checklist, sixteen elements of BP measurement skills were assessed among students before and after two weeks of training. McNemar's test, Paired-sample t tests and Pearson’s chi-square test were used to compare the data before and after training using SPSSTM software version 23. Results: The study showed that, before the training course, most of the elements of BP measurement skills were not performed by most of the students, where 9 out of 16 BP measurement skills were only accomplished by <20% of the recruited students. After the training course however, 14 out of 16 BP measurement skills were accomplished by>70 % of the students. Before training, Mean/SD of correctly-performed-skills out of 16 skills was 4.76/2.03. After training the Mean/SD was 13.99/5.19 (p<0.001).