Basic Nursing 1st Edition by Judith Wilkinson, Leslie Treas

Exercise 10

Lawson, L., Bridges, E. J., Ballou, I., et al. (2007).Accuracy and precision of noninvasive temperature measurement in adult intensive care patients. American Journal of Critical Care, 16(5), 485-496.
Over a period of 6 months, researchers took repeated measurements at various sites, including the gold standard pulmonary artery catheter, from 60 adults with cardiopulmonary disease in intensive care.They found oral and temporal artery measurements to be the most accurate and precise. Axillary measurements were less accurate, and otic (ear) measurements were the least accurate and precise.
Robinson, J. L., Jou, H., Spady, D.W.(2005).Accuracy of 1 parents in measuring body temperature with a tympanic thermometer. BM C Family Practice, 6(1), 3.
Parents and then nurses measured the temperatures of 60 children with a tympanic thermometer designed for home use. Nurses also measured the temperatures with a model of tympanic thermometer commonly used in hospitals. The readings done by parents were significantly different from the readings by nurses using the hospital thermometer a majority of the time, and parents failed to detect fever about 25% of the time.
Heusch, A. I., McCarthy, P.W. (2005).The patient:A novel source of error in clinical temperature measurement using infrared aural thermometry. Journal of Alternative Complementary Medicine, 11(3), 473-476.
Researchers used an infrared tympanic thermometer to measure the temperatures of I 32 subjects, ages I 8 to 48 years, who were asymptomatic with no known pathological problems. Temperatures were measured in both ears.There was a significant difference in the temperature in the left compared with the right ear. Also, at temperatures below 36.7°C (98°F), the left ear registered a lower temperature than did the right. At temperatures above 36.7°C (98°F), the left ear registered a higher temperature than did the right ear. Researchers suggested that averaging the temperature taken in both ears might increase the reliability of infrared tympanic thermometers.
Farnell, S., Maxwell, L.,Tan, S., et al. (2005).Temperature measurement: Comparison of non-invasive methods used in adult critical care. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 14(5), 632-639.
Researchers took I 60 sets of temperature measurements from 25 adult intensive care patients, using a chemical (Tempa•DOTTP1) and a tympanic thermometer. Patients' temperatures were also being measured with the gold standard pulmonary artery catheter. They found the chemical thermometer to be more accurate and reliable than the tympanic thermometer. However, compared with the pulmonary artery catheter, both methods were associated with erroneous readings.
Make a table containing the following:
a. The name of the first researcher listed (e.g., Lawson)
b. The number and type of subjects in the study
c. What each study found about tympanic temperature measurements