Critical Appraisal Report: Infrared Thermometry Agreement Study

This report presents a critical appraisal of the systematic review titled "Agreement of infrared temporal artery thermometry with other thermometry methods in adults." The study, which utilized PRISMA guidelines, aimed to assess the agreement between temporal artery thermometry and both invasive and non-invasive methods in hospitalized adults. The literature search encompassed databases such as CINAHL, Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Embase, with data extracted from twenty method-comparison studies published between 2002 and 2015. The appraisal highlights the study's limitations, including methodological weaknesses such as a limited search scope and the potential lack of generalizability of findings due to the focus on specific patient populations. The review's conclusion does not support the use of temporal artery thermometry as an adequate substitute for established methods. The report underscores the importance of clinician awareness regarding the accuracy and precision of temporal artery thermometers and suggests the use of more reliable alternatives. The appraisal emphasizes the contribution of the study to the global clinical community.

Critical Appraisal

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Agreement of infrared temporal artery thermometry with other thermometry methods in
adults: systematic review.............................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................2
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................3

INTRODUCTION
Critical appraisal can be stated as a process of systematically and carefully assessing the
result of a scientific research in order to judge its relevance, value and trustworthiness in specific
context (Huang, Magnin, & Brouqui, (2020). This is an appraisal report in which an
article “Agreement of infrared temporal artery thermometry with other thermometry methods in
adults: systematic review” is appraised.
MAIN BODY
Agreement of infrared temporal artery thermometry with other thermometry methods in adults:
systematic review
The article is a systematic review study which aims to critically synthesize and review the
evidence on covenant of temporal artery thermometry with noninvasive and invasive
thermometry methods in hospitalized adults. This article was written by the authors Panagiotis
Kiekkas, Antonios Kefaliakos, Nick Bakalis, Nikolaos Stefanopoulos and Menelaos Karanikolas.
In the provided article, the guidelines set by PRISMA were utilized. The literature search in this
study was conducted in CINAHL, web of science, PubMed, cochrane library and embase.
Twenty method comparison studies which was published between year 2002 to year 2015 were
utilised to extract data. The studies selected to extract data for this study majorly utilised
convenience sampling. It was found that some out of it studies which compared the TA
temperature measurements with invasive methods, only 2 reported satisfactory precision, 5 were
reported satisfactory accuracy and the meaning of one article reported both precision and
accuracy to be satisfactory (Kiekkas & et. al., (2016). The TA measurements depicted high
specificity what detecting hypothermia (95 percent) and fever (100%), but depicts poor
sensitivity in detecting both fever and hypothermia. Directional for developing common
accuracy standard of 0.5°C on the basis of trivial physiological outcome of temperature changes
within 1 degree centigrade as well as on normal variation in circadian range of temperature. In
the article, some limitations were found including methodological weaknesses, only few studies
reported variability and agreement between tested methods for hypothermic and febrile
temperatures. The another limitation of the study includes its emphasis on febrile readings and
most of the studies emphasize on surgical or critically ill patients, therefore the findings might
not be generalizable to patients. In context of methodology review, search was limited to five
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sources only, whereas other updated and comprehensive databases were not searched. The
outcome of the study shows that it does not favour use of TA thermometry as an adequate
alternative for non-invasive or invasive methods of measuring temperature. This paper suggest
that clinicians required to be aware of non-satisfactory precision and accuracy of temporal artery
thermometer and therefore eliminate their utilisation through preferring more accurate non-
invasive or invasive thermometry methods. This paper contributes to wider clinical community
all over the world (Bolton, Latimer & Clark, (2020).
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that the provided article does not
backing that temporal artery thermometry can substitute common noninvasive and invasive
thermometry methods in patients who are adult. This paper highly contributes to the wider
clinical community globally.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bolton, S., Latimer, E., & Clark, D. (2020). Temporal artery and non-contact infra-red
thermometers: is there sufficient evidence to support their use in secondary care?. Global
Clinical Engineering Journal, 2(2), 8-16.
Huang, F., Magnin, C., & Brouqui, P. (2020). Ingestible sensors correlate closely with peripheral
temperature measurements in febrile patients. Journal of Infection, 80(2), 161-166.
Kiekkas, P. & et. al., (2016). Agreement of infrared temporal artery thermometry with other
thermometry methods in adults: systematic review. Journal of clinical nursing, 25(7-8),
894-905.
Online
Agreement of infrared temporal artery thermometry with other thermometry methods in adults:
systematic review, 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jocn.13117>
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