Tympanic ear thermometer assessment of body temperature among patients with cognitive disturbances. An acceptable and ethically desirable alternative?

Aim Investigation of a possible relation between body temperature measurements by the current generation of tympanic ear and rectal thermometers. Background In Denmark, a national guideline recommends the rectal measurement. Subsequently, the rectal thermometers and tympanic ear devices are the most frequently used and first choice in Danish hospital wards. Cognitive changes constitute challenges with cooperating in rectal temperature assessments. With regard to diagnosing, ethics, safety and the patients' dignity, the tympanic ear thermometer might comprise a desirable alternative to rectal noninvasive measurement of body temperature during in‐hospital‐based neurorehabilitation. Design A prospective, descriptive cohort study. Consecutive inclusion of 27 patients. Linear regression models were used to analyse 284 simultaneous temperature measurements. Ethics Ethical approval for this study was granted by the Danish Data Protection Agency, and the study was completed in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration 2008. Results About 284 simultaneous rectal and ear temperature measurements on 27 patients were analysed. The patient‐wise variability of measured temperatures was significantly higher for the ear measurements. Patient‐wise linear regressions for the 25 patients with at least three pairs of simultaneous ear and rectal temperature measurements showed large interpatient variability of the association. Conclusion A linear relationship between the rectal body temperature assessment and the temperature assessment employing the tympanic thermometer is weak. Both measuring methods reflect variance in temperature, but ear measurements showed larger variation.