Accuracy of parents in measuring body temperature with a tympanic thermometer

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

Sixty parents were approached and all agreed to participate in the study. Their children were 35 males and 25 females aged 5 months to 15 years (median 3 years). Although the majority of patients were being assessed because of fever, only 17 children were febrile at the time of the study. All 3 measurements were obtained within 5 minutes for 55 of the 60 cases. Table 1 shows the results of the study. The mean absolute difference between the temperature recorded by the parent and the temperature recorded by the nurse using the home thermometer was 0.44 ± 0.61 °C ( Figure 1) . The difference was similar in febrile and afebrile children. The higher reading was from the parent in 20 of the 60 cases. Parents detected fever with a sensitivity of 76% (95% CI 50-93%), a specificity of 95% (95% CI 84-99%), a positive predictive value of 87% (95% CI 60-98%), and a negative predictive value of 91% (95% CI 79-98 %) ( Table 2 ).