Guideline implementation and raising awareness for unintended perioperative hypothermia: Single-group 'before and after' study.

Åženkal, Serkan; Kara, Umut

BACKGROUND Unintended Perioperative Hypothermia (UPH) is defined as a core body temperature less than 36°C. The Turkish Society of Anesthesiology and Reanimation [Türk Anesteziyoloji ve Reanimasyon Derneği (TARD)] published a 'Guideline for the Prevention of the Unintended Perioperative Hypothermia' in 2013. This study aims to decrease the incidence of unintended UPH in our hospital using a protocol, which is prepared according to the recommendations in the Guideline for the prevention of unintended perioperative hypothermia. METHODS A prospective quality improvement study was conducted with the protocol, which was prepared to decrease the incidence of unintended perioperative hypothermia in patients undergoing surgery. We measured and compared the perioperative hypothermia incidence before the implementation (November 24th, 2015 - January 15th, 2016) and after the implementation (April 6th, 2016 - July 21st, 2017). RESULTS The incidence of unintended perioperative hypothermia was 35% and 23.8% in the pre-implementation and postimplementation sections, respectively, and the difference was statistically significant (p=0.002). CONCLUSION The incidence of unintended perioperative hypothermia can be significantly decreased with the evidence-based implementations.