• Thomas Holder, Frances Sophie Woodley Hooper, David Yates, Zion Tse, Samadhan Patil, Ahmed Moussa, Lucy Batten, Vignesh Radhakrishnan, Mark Allison, Catherine Hewitt, Ada Keding, Greg Forshaw, and Vijay Jayagopal.
• York and Scarborough Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, York, UK.
• Clin Med (Lond). 2023 Mar 1; 23 (2): 157163157-163.

AbstractDuring the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the implementation of non-contact infrared thermometry (NCIT) became an increasingly popular method of screening body temperature. However, data on the accuracy of these devices and the standardisation of their use are limited. In the current study, the body temperature of non-febrile volunteers was measured using infrared (IR) thermography, IR tympanic thermometry and IR gun thermometry at different facial feature locations and distances and compared with SpotOn core-body temperature. Poor agreement was found between all IR devices and SpotOn measurements (intra-class correlation coefficient <0.8). Bland-Alman analysis showed the narrowest limits of agreement with the IR gun at 3 cm from the forehead (bias = 0.19°C, limits of agreement (LOA): -0.58°C to 0.97°C) and widest with the IR gun at the nose (bias = 1.40°C, LOA: -1.15°C to 3.94°C). Thus, our findings challenge the established use of IR thermometry devices within hospital settings without adequate standard operating procedures to reduce operator error.© Royal College of Physicians 2023. All rights reserved.

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