Influence of Hospital Environmental Variables on Thermometric Measurements and Level of Concordance: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study

Candelaria de la Merced Díaz-González (), Noa Mateos-López, Milagros De la Rosa-Hormiga and Gloria Carballo-Hernández
Additional contact information
Candelaria de la Merced Díaz-González: Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35001 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Noa Mateos-López: Unit of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Hospital Insular de Gran Canaria, 35016 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Milagros De la Rosa-Hormiga: Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35001 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Gloria Carballo-Hernández: Unit of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Hospital Insular de Gran Canaria, 35016 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: During a pandemic, and given the need to quickly screen febrile and non-febrile humans, it is necessary to know the concordance between different thermometers (TMs) and understand how environmental factors influence the measurements made by these instruments. Objective: The objective of this study is to identify the potential influence of environmental factors on the measurements made by four different TMs and the concordance between these instruments in a hospital setting. Method: The study employed a cross-sectional observational methodology. The participants were patients who had been hospitalised in the traumatology unit. The variables were body temperature, room temperature, room relative humidity, light, and noise. The instruments used were a Non Contract Infrared TM, Axillary Electronic TM, Gallium TM, and Tympanic TM. A lux meter, a sound level meter, and a thermohygrometer measured the ambient variables. Results: The study sample included 288 participants. Weak significant relationships were found between noise and body temperature measured with Tympanic Infrared TM, r = −0.146 ( p < 0.01) and likewise between environmental temperature and this same TM, r = 0.133 ( p < 0.05). The concordance between the measurements made by the four different TMs showed an Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) of 0.479. Conclusions: The concordance between the four TMs was considered “fair”.

Keywords: thermometers; body temperature; environmental factors; relative humidity; light; noise; temperature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4665/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4665/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:5:p:4665-:d:1089239

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().