| Description |
Temperature is used daily as criteria for diagnosis, for decision, and for plan of care; therefore, the measurement must be accurate for valid use. However, consistant information is not available for the placement time for taking children's temperatures, and the studies that have been done on adults show a variation in age group. to clarify the problem, this study was done. The hypotheses tested were the following: 1. The optimum placement time from a female child's rectal temperature will compare to within three minutes of that established for adults by Nichols, et al., which is two minutes. 2. The optimum placement time for a female child's axillary temperature will compare to within three minutes of that established for adults by Nichols, et.al., which is nine minutes. Temperature placement times will vary with age. The study was done on thirty-three, normal, healthy female children who were put into groups according to age. The three groups consisted of three year olds, six year olds, and nine year olds. Then, axillary and rectal temperatures were taken simultaneously and read every two minutes with standardized thermometers. The environmental temperature ranged from 72° to 78° Fahrenheit, and the same watch was used for all procedures. The optimum, rectal placement time for the total group was six minutes. The optimum, axillary placement time for the total group was ten minutes. Both were longer than adult placement time in other studies. However, the girl's rectal placement time was greater than the adults by four minutes; thus, the first hypothesis was rejected and the second accepted. There was no significant difference between groups in this study; so the third hypothesis was rejected. |
