Annals of Emergency Medicine
Volume 39, Issue 3 , Pages 233-237 , March 2002

The reliability of vital sign measurements

Received 15 March 2001 ,Revised 13 November 2001 ,Accepted 4 December 2001.

References 

  1. Prior JA, Silberstein JS, Stang JM. Physical Diagnosis: The History and Examination of the Patient. St. Louis, MO: CV Mosby Co; 1981;
  2. Hooker EA, O'Brien DJ, Danzl DF, et al.  Respiratory rates in emergency department patients. J Emerg Med. 1989;7:129–132
  3. Mower WR, Sachs C, Nicklin EL, et al.  A comparison of pulse oximetry and respiratory rate in patient screening. Respir Med. 1996;90:593–599
  4. Gilbert R, Auchincloss JH, Brodsky J, et al.  Changes in tidal volume, frequency, and ventilation induced by their measurement. J Appl Physiol. 1972;33:252–254
  5. Bland JM, Altman DG. Statistical methods for assessing agreement between two methods of clinical measurement. Lancet. 1986;1:307–310
  6. Landis JR, Koch GG. The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics. 1977;33:159–174
  7. Fletcher RH, Fletcher SW, Wagner EH. Clinical Epidemiology: The Essentials. Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins; 1988;
  8. Hwu YJ, Coates VE, Lin FY. A study of the effectiveness of different measuring times and counting methods of human radial pulse rates. J Clin Nurs. 2000;9:146–152
  9. Marks LA, Groch A. Optimizing cuff width for non-invasive measurement of blood pressure. Blood Press Monit. 2000;5:153–158
  10. Fine MJ, Auble TE, Yealy DM, et al.  A prediction rule to identify low-risk patients with community-acquired pneumonia. N Engl J Med. 1977;336:243–250
  11. Little RA, Kirkman E, Driscoll P, et al.  Preventable deaths after injury: why are the traditional vital signs poor indicators of blood loss. J Accid Emerg Med. 1995;12:1–14

☆ Supported in part by the UCLA School of Medicine Short-Term Training Program.

☆☆ Reprints not available from the authors. Address for correspondence: William R. Mower, MD, PhD, UCLA Emergency Medicine Center, 924 Westwood Boulevard, Suite 300, Los Angeles, CA 90024; 310-794-0582, fax 310-794-0599; E-mail: wmower@ucla.edu

* Author contributions are provided at the end of this article. Author contributions: ZVE and WRM conceived the study and designed the trial. ZVE, WRM, LML, and RL undertook patient recruitment, enrollment, and data collection. WRM provided statistical advice on study design and analyzed the data. ZVE drafted the manuscript, and all authors contributed substantially to its revision. WRM takes responsibility for the paper as a whole.

PII: S0196-0644(02)42324-4

doi: 10.1067/mem.2002.122017

Annals of Emergency Medicine
Volume 39, Issue 3 , Pages 233-237 , March 2002

Article Tools