Comparison Of Measurements Of Body Temperature With Four Thermometers In A Children Health Care Setting. Comparison Of Thermometers.

Abstract

Introduction. Body temperature is measure in all setting of primary health care. There are some thermometers for use, but the results of their measurements are controversial.Patients and methods. We made measurements of body temperature with cutaneous, ear, digital axillary and mercurial axillary in 100 children under 18 years old that attended a private ambulatory pediatric health care; they were rest 15 minutes and then we made the measurements, two times for one researcher and another time for a different research. The time between measurements were 15 minutes. We calculated validity and repeatability in cutaneous, ear and digital axillary thermometers compared with mercurial axillary; we obtained r Pearson and regression lineal equation. We calculated Kappa for the agreement intra-researcher and inter-researchers.Results. Sensitivity was low (<70%) for cutaneous and ear thermometers, but it was high for digital axillary. Predictive positive value was high for digital axillary thermometry compared with mercurial axillary (>90%). r de Pearson was excellent (>0.90) between digital axillary and mercurial with regression lineal equation significative (p<.05). Kappa was higher, o89 y 0.90 for digital axillary and mercurial axillary thermometry. Conclusion. In our sample, digital axillary thermometer measured the body temperature more similar that mercurial axillary thermometer.