Original contribution
Re-evaluation of the tympanic thermometer in the emergency department

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0196-0644(05)80151-9Get rights and content

Study objective:

A study was undertaken to re-evaluate tympanic temperatures using a commonly used portable infrared tympanic thermometer.

Design:

Temperatures were recorded sequentially at two body sites using an electronic digital thermometer and an infrared tympanic thermometer. The tympanic thermometer was set to the core equivalency setting.

Setting:

The emergency department of a Level 2 trauma center.

Type of participants:

Seventy-nine pediatric patients presenting to the ED.

Measurements and main results:

Mean temperatures in the tympanic and rectal temperature groups were 38.5 ± 1.08 C and 38.8 ± 1.02 C, respectively (P > .05). The overall correlation of rectal and tympanic temperatures was 0.03 (P ≪ .001). Stratifying the data by age resulted in a weakened correlation for patients 3 months of age and younger. For all strata, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the tympanic thermometer for predicting fever were 96.6%, 100%, 100%, and 90.1%, respectively; for patients more than 3 months of age, the values were 100% in all categories.

Conclusion:

Our findings indicate that the First Temp® infrared tympanic thermometer accurately detected fever in a pediatric population more than 3 months old. Results were inconclusive in patients less than 3 months old.

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