A Comparative Study on Nasopharyngeal and Peripheral Skin Temperature in Critically Ill Patients

Abstract

Skin temperature measurement is an easy and convenient method of temperature measurement, but there is no consensus about its agreement with core temperature. Objective of this study was to compare the skin temperature measurement with the nasopharyngeal temperature (NP) measurement in critically ill patients. It was a prospective comparative study. A total of 280 (140 skin temperature and 140 NP) temperature measurements were obtained from 35 adult ICU patients. The bias between the skin temperature and the NP was −0.68 °C ± 0.38 SD (limits of agreements −0.07 °C and −1.43 °C). There was no significant relationship between the temperature gradient and different ranges of temperature (r = 0.12, r² = 0.15, p = 0.08). But for patients, not receiving any vasoactive agents (r = −0.19, r² = 0.035, p = 0.03), there was a weak negative relationship between the temperature gradient and the temperature of the patient and for patients getting vasoactive agents there was a positive correlation (r = 0.43, r² = 0.19, p = 0.004). The results reflect that the skin temperature measurement is not an accepted mode due to its large bias and less precision, especially in patients receiving vasoactive drugs.