Vital Signs Nursing: Respiratory Rate, Pulse, Blood Pressure, Temperature, Pain, Oxygen

- Hey everyone, it's Sarah RegisteredNurseRN.com, and today I wanna demonstrate how to take vital signs. First, what you wanna do is you wanna gather your supplies. Typically what you're gonna need is a stethoscope with a blood pressure cuff along with a thermometer of some type, a pulse ox, a watch, and some gloves along with a disinfectant wipe

to clean the items that are not disposable. Then what you wanna do is you wanna perform hand hygiene and don, the appropriate PPE if necessary. Like if your patient's in contact precautions, you'll want to put on the correct PPE. Now, what is collected during the vital sign measurement? Well, you'll be checking the patient's blood pressure,

heart rate, respirations, and temperature. In addition, you'll be asking the patient their pain rating, which is sometimes referred to as the fifth vital sign, along with the collecting their oxygen saturation. So I've arrived to the patient's exam room and I've performed hand hygiene. Now what I wanna do is I wanna introduce myself

to the patient and tell them what we're gonna be doing. So, hello, my name is Sarah. I'm a nurse here, and I wanna be taking your vital signs. Is that okay with you? Yes. Okay. Then you want to do your patient identifiers by looking at their arm band, having them tell you their name and their date of birth.

Then I like to start with the easiest thing, which is pain. And so I'm going to ask him his pain level. Now, this is a very easy and important assessment tool because high pain ratings, if the patient is in pain, it can alter their vital signs, it can increase their heart rate, their blood pressure,