Physical methods for the treatment of fever in critically ill patients: a randomized controlled trial

• Autor(a) principal: Salgado,Patrícia de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Silva,Ludmila Christiane Rosa da, Silva,Priscila Marinho Aleixo, Chianca,Tânia Couto Machado
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0080-62342016000500823
• topic: Fever; Critical Care Nursing; Evidence-Based Nursing; Evaluation of Results of Therapeutic Interventions; Intensive Care Units

Abstract OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of physical methods of reducing body temperature (ice pack and warm compression) in critically ill patients with fever. METHOD A randomized clinical trial involving 102 adult patients with tympanic temperature ≥ 38.3°C of an infectious focus, and randomized into three groups: Intervention I - ice pack associated with antipyretic; Intervention II - warm compress associated with antipyretic; and Control - antipyretic. Tympanic temperature was measured at 15 minute intervals for 3 hours. The effect of the interventions was evaluated through the Mann-Whitney test and Survival Analysis. "Effect size" calculation was carried out. RESULTS Patients in the intervention groups I and II presented greater reduction in body temperature. The group of patients receiving intervention I presented tympanic temperature below 38.3°C at 45 minutes of monitoring, while the value for control group was lower than 38.3°C starting at 60 minutes, and those who received intervention II had values lower than 38.3°C at 75 minutes of monitoring. CONCLUSION No statistically significant difference was found between the interventions, but with the intervention group I patients showed greater reduction in tympanic temperature compared to the other groups. Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials: RBR-2k3kbq