How to monitor blood glucose
Intended for healthcare professionals
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How to monitor blood glucose

Trisha Dunning Chair in nursing and director, Centre for Nursing and Allied Health Research, Deakin University and Barwon Health, Geelong, Victoria, Australia

Rationale and key points

Capillary blood glucose monitoring is an essential component of diabetes care. Blood glucose tests provide important information about how the body is controlling blood glucose metabolism, and the effect of glucose-lowering medicines, illness and stress.

The nurse should consider the rationale for testing blood glucose each time they perform a test, and reflect on the result, taking into consideration the patient’s blood glucose target range and recommended care guidelines.

Blood glucose testing times and testing frequency should be planned to suit the glucose-lowering medicine regimen and the clinical situation.

Reflective activity

Clinical skills articles can help update your practice and ensure it remains evidence based. Apply this article to your practice. Reflect on and write a short account of:

What you have gained from this article.

How this article will influence your practice when monitoring blood glucose.

Subscribers can upload their reflective accounts at: rcni.com/portfolio.

Nursing Standard. 30, 22, 36-39. doi: 10.7748/ns.30.22.36.s45

Correspondence

TRIDUN@BarwonHealth.org.au

Peer review

All articles are subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software.

Received: 23 January 2015

Accepted: 21 May 2015

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