Critical care: the eight vital signs of patient monitoring
Abstract
Nurses have traditionally relied on five vital signs to assess their patients: temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation. However, as patients hospitalised today are sicker than in the past, these vital signs may not be adequate to identify those who are clinically deteriorating. This paper describes clinical issues to consider when measuring vital signs as well as proposing additional assessments of pain, level of consciousness and urine output, as part of routine patient assessment.
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The definition of vital signs is not distinct.
“As the definition of vital signs is not distinct [35], we included the following vital signs [9,36,37]: HR, HR variability, ECG measurements or heart rhythm analysis (detection of arrhythmias), blood pressure, blood oxygen, respiratory rate, body temperature, sleep, electrodermal activity, electromyogram measurements, and PA (Textbox 1).”
From The impact of wearable technologies in health research: scoping review (2022) · cites this paper as [35]
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References 54 · Cited by 199
- Authors
- Elliott, M., & Coventry, A.
- Affiliations
- Faculty of Health Science and Community Studies, Holmesglen Institute, Victoria, Australia
- Australian Catholic University (AU)
- Venue
- British Journal of Nursing
- Publisher
- Mark Allen Group
- Published
- 2012-05-23
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 621-625
- ISSN
- 0966-0461 (ISSN-L)
- 2052-2819
- OpenAlex
- W2116507356
- Cited by
- 199
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 6.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- British Journal of Nursing (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Bank (Australian Catholic University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Healthcare Technology and Patient Monitoring
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Surgery › Hemodynamic Monitoring and Therapy
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Sepsis Diagnosis and Treatment
- Keywords
- vital signs, patient monitoring, clinical deterioration, early warning systems, pain assessment, level of consciousness, urine output, critical care nursing, patient assessment
- MeSH terms
- Critical Care, Humans, Monitoring, Physiologic
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