Accuracy of parents in measuring body temperature with a tympanic thermometer

Robinson, Joan L; Jou, Hsing; Spady, Donald W

Even if the parent and the nurse obtained similar readings from the home thermometer, it would still be possible that these readings are inaccurate, as there are no published studies demonstrating the accuracy of this thermometer. Therefore, the readings obtained by the nurse and the parent from the home thermometer were compared to those obtained by the nurse using the hospital thermometer (the reference standard for the study). If the readings obtained by the parent differed considerably from those obtained by the nurse, but the nurse then obtained very consistent readings with the two different thermometers, one could conclude that the parents were inaccurate because of human error. On the other hand, if the nurse obtained inconsistent readings with the two different thermometers, this would suggest that either instrument or human error could be the problem.