TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparison of stethoscope bell and diaphragm, and of stethoscope tube length, for clinical blood pressure measurement
AU - Liu, Chengyu
AU - Griffiths, Clive
AU - Murray, Alan
AU - Zheng, Dingchang
N1 - This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CCBY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
PY - 2016/6
Y1 - 2016/6
N2 - This study investigated the effect of stethoscope side and tube length on auscultatory blood pressure (BP) measurement.
Methods Thirty-two healthy participants were studied. For each participant, four measurements with different combinations of stethoscope characteristics (bell or diaphragm side, standard or short tube length) were each recorded at two repeat sessions, and eight Korotkoff sound recordings were played twice on separate days to one experienced listener to determine the systolic and diastolic BPs (SBP and DBP). Analysis of variance was carried out to study the measurement repeatability between the two repeat sessions and between the two BP determinations on separate days, as well as the effects of stethoscope side and tube length.
Results There was no significant paired difference between the repeat sessions and between the repeat determinations for both SBP and DBP (all P-values>0.10, except the repeat session for SBP using short tube and diaphragm). The key result was that there was a small but significantly higher DBP on using the bell in comparison with the diaphragm (0.66 mmHg, P=0.007), and a significantly higher SBP on using the short tube in comparison with the standard length (0.77 mmHg, P=0.008).
Conclusion
This study shows that stethoscope characteristics have only a small, although statistically significant, influence on clinical BP measurement. Although this helps understand the measurement technique and resolves questions in the published literature, the influence is not clinically significant.
AB - This study investigated the effect of stethoscope side and tube length on auscultatory blood pressure (BP) measurement.
Methods Thirty-two healthy participants were studied. For each participant, four measurements with different combinations of stethoscope characteristics (bell or diaphragm side, standard or short tube length) were each recorded at two repeat sessions, and eight Korotkoff sound recordings were played twice on separate days to one experienced listener to determine the systolic and diastolic BPs (SBP and DBP). Analysis of variance was carried out to study the measurement repeatability between the two repeat sessions and between the two BP determinations on separate days, as well as the effects of stethoscope side and tube length.
Results There was no significant paired difference between the repeat sessions and between the repeat determinations for both SBP and DBP (all P-values>0.10, except the repeat session for SBP using short tube and diaphragm). The key result was that there was a small but significantly higher DBP on using the bell in comparison with the diaphragm (0.66 mmHg, P=0.007), and a significantly higher SBP on using the short tube in comparison with the standard length (0.77 mmHg, P=0.008).
Conclusion
This study shows that stethoscope characteristics have only a small, although statistically significant, influence on clinical BP measurement. Although this helps understand the measurement technique and resolves questions in the published literature, the influence is not clinically significant.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84953241732&partnerID=MN8TOARS
U2 - 10.1097/MBP.0000000000000175
DO - 10.1097/MBP.0000000000000175
M3 - Article
SN - 1473-5725
VL - 21
SP - 178
EP - 183
JO - Blood Pressure Monitoring
JF - Blood Pressure Monitoring
IS - 3
ER -