Avaliação de recursos tecnológicos de engenharia biomédica de um simulador humano computadorizado: estudo de caso com simulação realística da pressão arterial

Abstract

The Human Patient Simulator (Human Patient Simulator - HPS) is a scientific and technological resource of Biomedical Engineering with hardware and software solutions that simulate human physiology. The objective of this study was to evaluate a case of clinical simulation using an HPS to perform blood pressure (BP) measurement using an aneroid sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope. The research was approved by the ethics committee in the legal opinion 1544.404 / 2016.The practical part of this work was carried out in the ICU Simulation Laboratory of the IFRR. The research involved thirty-three volunteers, who were students of the Nursing Technical Course, randomly divided into two groups. The proposed methodology made use of an exploratory-descriptive research to obtain quantitative, qualitative and statistical data to compare the results of the BP measurement of the Experimental Group (EG) with the Control Group (CG). The research was developed in two parts. In part I, a pre-test questionnaire was initially applied, an experiment of BP measurement following the respective group’s procedure; and a post-test questionnaire. In part II, the groups were inverted and submitted to the same phases of part I. A total of 599 PAs were measured by volunteers, being 528 PAs from the GE and 71 PAs from the GC. With the BP readings, either the Student's t or the Wilcoxon test was performed with a 95% confidence interval, depending on the linearity test, to test the hypotheses (null or alternative) individually, and for the group analysis it was used either the ANOVA or Kruskal's test -Wallis making it possible to distinguish which volunteers need more training and their respective AP level. In the post-test, when the Likert scale was used, there was a 54% agreement among the EG research volunteers that the methodology using the HPS strengthens the knowledge for the development of clinical skills, as well as being able to distinguish normal from abnormal signals that are conducive to learning. Statistically comparing both groups,in the CG: 53% know BP measurement, 13% do not know BP measurement and 35% of the samples are invalid, while in the EG: 64% of the volunteers know BP measurement, 22% do not know how to measure BP and 14% of the samples are invalid. In addition, the volunteers show effectiveness when using the HPS.