Comparing the association of cardiovascular nursing care with blood pressure and length of stay of in-patients with coronary artery disease in Wuhan, China

BACKGROUND: Coronary artery disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Comorbidity-like hypertension has been among the major risks of coronary artery disease. Recent evidence identified multiple benefits of cardiovascular nursing care to coronary patients. However, little has been appraised on benefits regarding patients' blood pressure control and length of hospitalisation. OBJECTIVE: To compare the association of cardiovascular nursing care delivered to coronary artery patients with patients' blood pressure and length of stay. METHODS: Records based retrospective design was applied at a large teaching hospital in Wuhan, China. SPSS 21 version was used for data entry and analysis with univariate and multivariate logistic regression models for comparing study variables. RESULTS: Of 300 patients, 224 (74.7%) were known to be hypertensive and admitted with subnormal blood pressure. Cardiovascular nursing care like "assess to grade pain severity on 1-10 scale" and "counsel patient to cope with stress" were six and three times more likely to contribute improved patients' blood pressure (AOR=5.8; 95%CI: 2.8-12.2, p=0.001) and (AOR=3.1; 95%CI: 1.2-7.8, p=0.015) respectively. No significant difference with length of stay (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: There is a possibility of coronary artery patients to recover with normal blood pressure following reception of evidence-based cardiovascular nursing care.