COMPARISON OF AXILLARY AND RECTAL TEMPERATURES (TEMP) TAKEN BY ELECTRONIC PREDICTIVE AND MERCURY THERMOMETERS (THERM)

Abstract

Axillary temp measurements using a mercury therm have been documented to correlate with rectal temps if 5 min is spent taking the axillary measurement. In a nursery this is a time consuming activity. Some electronic therms have predictive circuitry that extrapolates final temps from an initial temp rise thus providing an appealing alternative method for axillary temps because it would take only 1 instead of 5 min nursing time to measure. To test of this technique 95 paired measurements of axillary temps were made in 17 full term infants ages 1-8 d. Correlations between axillary temps transduced using an electronic therm (IVAC 811A) in its rapid predictive mode, and a mercury bulb therm was excellent (r=0.82, p<.001) but variability from the line of identity ranged from 0°-1.2°F and in 10.5% of the 95 comparisons the electronic therm predicted a temp that actually was 0.5° or more (range 0.5°-1.2°F) different from mercury bulb values. Similar comparisons between predictive electronic and standard mercury therms in transducing rectal temps also showed excellent agreement (r=0.95, p<0.001) but variability from the line of identity was better, ranging from 0°-0.4°F, as long as both measurements were made at a rectal insertion depth of 3 cm. Greater variability was seen with insertion depths of 2 and 1 cm. Electronic techniques can therefore speed up the measurement of core rectal temps without much loss in accuracy. In addition, electronic predictive therms are probably innappropriate devices for measuring axillary temps in newborns.

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