• J Clin Nurs · Apr 2005

    Comparative Study

    Comparing mercury-in-glass, tympanic and disposable thermometers in measuring body temperature in healthy young people.

    • Leyla Khorshid, Ismet Eşer, Ayten Zaybak, and Ulkü Yapucu.
    • Ege University School of Nursing, Izmir, Turkey.
    • J Clin Nurs. 2005 Apr 1;14(4):496-500.

    Aim And ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to determine whether a disposable thermometer was at least as accurate as a tympanic thermometer when compared with a mercury-in-glass thermometer and to investigate the waiting periods of mercury-in-glass thermometers.BackgroundAlthough different methods of temperature measurement have been widely studied and described during the last decade, comparison between readings obtained when measuring body temperature using disposable, mercury-in-glass and tympanic thermometers is little documented and there is confusion about the waiting periods of mercury-in-glass thermometers.MethodsThis research was descriptive and comparative. Temperature measurements included three sequential readings using first a tympanic thermometer in the left ear, then a disposable thermometer in the left axillary area and finally a mercury-in-glass thermometer in the right axillary area. All the temperatures were measured on the Celsius (degrees C) scale. To identify the stabilization periods of the mercury-in-glass thermometers, the temperature measurement was repeated until the reading stabilized. F-tests were used to compare readings of the mean temperatures.ResultsIt was found that body temperature readings measured by tympanic thermometer were higher than axillary mercury-in-glass thermometer by 0.12 degrees C, body temperature readings measured by tympanic thermometer were higher than axillary disposable thermometer readings by 0.65 degrees C and body temperature readings measured by axillary mercury-in-glass thermometer were higher by 0.53 degrees C than readings measured by axillary disposable thermometer. It was found that readings measured by mercury-in-glass thermometer stabilized in the eighth minute.Relevance To Clinical PracticeWhen assessing body temperature it is important to take the type of thermometer into consideration. In addition, axillary mercury-in-glass thermometers must be kept in place a minimum of eight minutes.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…