Abstract

Objective:  Axillary  and  tympanic  measurements  are frequently  used  for  the  measurement  of  body temperature in newborns. In this study, we aimed to compare axillary, tympanic and rectal body temperature measurements in premature and term newborns.

Material  and  Methods:  The  study  was  conducted  in  Hacettepe  University  Ihsan  Doğramacı  Children’s  Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. A total of 100 newborns enrolled in the study; 100 axillary, 100 tympanic and 100 rectal measurements  were performed.  Body  temperature  values  measured  by different  methods  were  all  methods  were compared.

Results: In  all  study  patients,  strong  correlations between  rectal  and  axillary  body  temperature measurements  (r: 0.74, p: 0.000), and weak correlations between the rectal and tympanic measurements and the axillary and tympanic measurements (r: 0.47 and 0.59; p: 0.000, p: 0.000) were observed.

Conclusion: Body temperature monitoring of term and premature newborns seems to be best performed with axillary measurements in our study population.

Keywords: Axillary, Premature, Rectal measurement, Tympanic, Body temperature measurement, Newborn

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Copyright and license

Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to cite

1.
Çelik HT. Comparison of the Tympanic, Axillary and Rectal Temperature Measurements in Term and Preterm Newborns. Turk J Pediatr Dis. 2019;13(2):63-66. https://doi.org/10.12956/tchd.539047