Clinical accuracy of tympanic thermometer and noncontact infrared skin thermometer in pediatric practice: an alternative for axillary digital thermometer

Clinical accuracy of tympanic thermometer and noncontact infrared skin thermometer in pediatric practice: an alternative for axillary digital thermometer

The aim of this study was to compare the body temperature measurements of infrared tympanic and forehead noncontact thermometers with the axillary digital thermometer. Randomly selected 50 pediatric patients who were hospitalized in Dr Behcet Uz Children's Training and Research Hospital, Pediat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pediatric emergency care Vol. 29; no. 9; pp. 992 - 997
Main Authors: Apa, Hurşit, Gözmen, Salih, Bayram, Nuri, Çatkoğlu, Asl, Devrim, Fatma, Karaarslan, Utku, Günay, İlker, Ünal, Nurettin, Devrim, İlker
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 01-09-2013
Subjects:
Adolescent
Axilla
Body Temperature
Child
Child, Preschool
Ear, Middle
Equipment Design
Female
Fever - diagnosis
Forehead
Hospitals, Pediatric
Humans
Infant
Infectious Disease Medicine
Infrared Rays
Male
Observer Variation
Pediatrics - instrumentation
Reproducibility of Results
Sampling Studies
Sensitivity and Specificity
Skin Temperature
Thermometers - classification
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Summary:The aim of this study was to compare the body temperature measurements of infrared tympanic and forehead noncontact thermometers with the axillary digital thermometer. Randomly selected 50 pediatric patients who were hospitalized in Dr Behcet Uz Children's Training and Research Hospital, Pediatric Infectious Disease Unit, between March 2012 and September 2012 were included in the study. Body temperature measurements were performed using an axillary thermometer (Microlife MT 3001), a tympanic thermometer (Microlife Ear Thermometer IR 100), and a noncontact thermometer (ThermoFlash LX-26). Fifty patients participated in this study. We performed 1639 temperature readings for every method. The average difference between the mean (SD) of both axillary and tympanic temperatures was -0.20°C (0.61°C) (95% confidence interval, -1.41°C to 1.00°C). The average difference between the mean (SD) of both axillary and forehead temperatures was -0.38 (0.55°C) (95% confidence interval, -1.47°C to 0.70°C). The Bland-Altman plot showed that most of the data points were tightly clustered around the zero line of the difference between the 2 temperature readings. With the use of the axillary method as the criterion standard, positive likelihood ratios were 17.9 and 16.5 and negative likelihood ratios were 0.2 and 0.4 for tympanic and forehead measurements, respectively. The results demonstrated that the infrared tympanic thermometer could be a good option in the measurement of fever in the pediatric population. The noncontact infrared thermometer is very useful for the screening of fever in the pediatric population, but it must be used with caution because it has a high value of bias.
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ISSN:0749-5161
1535-1815
DOI:10.1097/PEC.0b013e3182a2d419