Reliability of Infrared Tympanic Thermometry in the Detection of Rectal Fever in Children

See related editorial, "What's Hot and What's Not: The Gold Standard for Thermometry in Emergency Medicine." Study objective: Recently published clinical guidelines for the management of febrile children are based on studies that used rectal temperature data to stratify the risk of bacteremia and septic complications. Appropriate management decisions rely on accurate detection and categorization of fever. Accordingly, this study compared the newer infrared tympanic thermometry (ITT) to rectal thermometry in this regard. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: Urban teaching hospital ED with annual census of 60,000. Participants: Consecutive children 6 months to 6 years old who had rectal temperatures measured. Interventions: Triage nurses recorded rectal temperatures and bilateral ITT temperatures. Temperatures were correlated by Pearson correlation coefficients and compared using paired t tests with significance set at P