Comparison of Obtained Measurements via the Mercury-Glass and the Chemical Thermometers in Determining the Body Temperature

Friday, 26 July 2013: 8:30 AM

Nuray Sahin Orak, PhD, MSc, RN1
Aysegül Oksay Sahin, PhD, MSc, RN2
Sule Ecevit Alpar, PhD, RN1
Necmiye Sabuncu, PhD, RN3
(1)Fundamentals of Nursing, Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Marmara University, ISTANBUL, Turkey
(2)School of Health, Karabük University, KARABÜK, Turkey
(3)School of Nursing, Haliç University, ISTANBUL, Turkey

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to become aware of axillary waiting times for the chemical (disposable, resuable) thermometers are longer than 3 minutes.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to become aware of the chemical (disposable, resuable) thermometers can use instead of mercury-glass thermometer.

Purpose: The research was planned to determine waiting times of the mercury-glass, the disposable and the reusable  chemical (sensitive to heat, change color) thermometers, and the harmony between body temperature measurements obtained with them, and to test whether these thermometers will alternative instead of the mercury-glass thermometers for the measurement of axillary body temperature of healthy individuals. The research (project no: SAG-A-300609-0212) was supported by Marmara University Research Fund (BAPKO) in Turkey.
Methods: The research was conducted on 110 peoples and 2469 measurements were made in total. The data were analyzed using the SPSS program (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) 17.0 program for Windows and the MedCalc 9.6.2.0. The data were evaluated with frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, paired samples t test, compliance coefficient (Concordance Correlation Coefficient), Bland Altman plot and recommended by Bland-Altman coefficient of repeatability. Data was evaluated in the range of confidence 95% and p <0.05 significance level.
 
Results: Axillary waiting times for the mercury glass, the disposable and the reusable chemical thermometers were obtained, respectively, 8, 7 and 9 minutes. It was defined measurements of the disposable chemical thermometer 0.42 oC lower, 0.54 oC higher and measurements of the reusable chemical thermometer 0.63 oC lower, 0.40 oC higher than measurements of the mercury glass thermometer according to the values obtained from axillary body temperature measurement at the end of these waiting times. Compliance levels of the mercury- glass thermometers with disposable and reusable chemical thermometers were similar.

Conclusion: Both of the disposable chemical thermometer and the reusable chemical thermometer can use instead of the mercury-glass thermometer.