• Kevin W McConeghy, Elizabeth White, Orestis A Panagiotou, Christopher Santostefano, Christopher Halladay, Richard A Feifer, Carolyn Blackman, James L Rudolph, Vince Mor, and Stefan Gravenstein.
• Department of Veterans Affairs, Center on Innovation in Long-Term Services and Supports, Providence VA Medical Center, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
• J Am Geriatr Soc. 2020 Dec 1; 68 (12): 2716-2720.

Background/ObjectivesInfection screening tools classically define fever as 38.0°C (100.4°F). Frail older adults may not mount the same febrile response to systemic infection as younger or healthier individuals. We evaluate temperature trends among nursing home (NH) residents undergoing diagnostic SARS-CoV-2 testing and describe the diagnostic accuracy of temperature measurements for predicting test-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection.DesignRetrospective cohort study evaluating diagnostic accuracy of pre-SARS-CoV-2 testing temperature changes.SettingTwo separate NH cohorts tested diagnostically (e.g., for symptoms) for SARS-CoV-2. PARTICIPANTS Veterans residing in Veterans Affairs (VA) managed NHs and residents in a private national chain of community NHs.MeasurementsFor both cohorts, we determined the sensitivity, specificity, and Youden's index with different temperature cutoffs for SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction results.ResultsThe VA cohort consisted of 1,301 residents in 134 facilities from March 1, 2020, to May 14, 2020, with 25% confirmed for SARS-CoV-2. The community cohort included 3,368 residents spread across 282 facilities from February 18, 2020, to June 9, 2020, and 42% were confirmed for SARS-CoV-2. The VA cohort was younger, less White, and mostly male. A temperature testing threshold of 37.2°C has better sensitivity for SARS-CoV-2, 76% and 34% in the VA and community NH, respectively, versus 38.0°C with 43% and 12% sensitivity, respectively.ConclusionA definition of 38.0°C for fever in NH screening tools should be lowered to improve predictive accuracy for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Stakeholders should carefully consider the impact of adopting lower testing thresholds on testing availability, cost, and burden on staff and residents. Temperatures alone have relatively low sensitivity/specificity, and we advocate any threshold be used as part of a screening tool, along with other signs and symptoms of infection.© 2020 The American Geriatrics Society.

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