Effects of Forced-Air Warming Blanket on Anxiety Reduction and Thermal Comfort Improvement With Physical Indicators for Patients Undergoing Abdominal Surgery: A Quasi-experimental Study.

Purpose: Keeping warm is important for patients undergoing an operation because intraoperative or postoperative hypothermia may result in complications and mortality. In addition, patients undergoing an operation could have higher levels of anxiety, and keeping them warm may be helpful for anxiety reduction. This study examined if using a forced-air warming blanket from the intraoperative to postoperative period could help reduce anxiety, improve thermal comfort, and maintain core body temperatures for patients undergoing an abdominal operation.

Design: A quasi-experimental study.

Methods: There were two groups: a forced-air warming blanket group (FG; n = 30 [23.3% males]; 51.53 years) and a control group (CG; n = 32 [25.0% males]; 48.97 years). The participants were allocated to either intervention or control groups based on the sequence of their invitation to the study: the first 34 were assigned to the FG group, and the second 34 to the CG group. All participants completed measures assessing anxiety and thermal comfort. Body temperatures were measured using an esophageal temperature probe, and heart rate and blood pressure were measured using central electrocardiography.

Findings: After controlling for age, marital status, educational level, previous operation experience, and baseline measures, the results showed that the FG had significantly lower levels of anxiety than the CG (adjusted mean±SE = 3.83 ± 0.27 vs 5.02 ± 0.24; P < .001) with a large effect size (d = -0.85). The FG had significantly better thermal comfort than the CG (adjusted mean±SE = 4.51 ± 0.21 vs 3.53 ± 0.19; P < .001), with a large effect size (d = 0.89). The two groups had no significant differences in other physical indicators (P = .144-.836; d = -0.04 to 0.30).

Conclusions: The results indicate that using a forced-air warming blanket is a good intervention to help reduce anxiety and increase thermal comfort among patients undergoing abdominal surgery during the perioperative period.