Circadian variability at oral, timpanic and axillary temperature in hospitalized adults

Abstract

The aim of this study was to measure the circadian variability of patients' temperature in the eardrum, oral, and armpit positions considering the measurement angle. The study was carried out at the State University of Campinas' Clinics Hospital (HC Unicamp), a school hospital in the city of Campinas, State of São Paulo. Temperatures were taken in the Cardiology, Adult General Clinic and Gastric infirmaries every two hours in two consecutive days, from the time patients woke up until 10 PM. The results show a significant difference, p-value = 0.0001, between the morning and after-noon periods compared to the evening period. The Tukey test has also showed a difference. It was observed that the measurement in the eardrum position resulted in higher temperatures compared to the other positions, thus confirming data in the international literature. The circadian variability eardrum temperature was similar to the measurements of the oral temperature during the patients' awaked period.