Comparison of Temporal Artery Versus Rectal Temperature in Emergency Department Patients Who Are Unable to Participate in Oral Temperature Assessment

No influence was detected on the differences between RT and TAT due to age, sex, or emergency severity index (ESI) score in patients or due to profession, years of education, or years of experience in caregivers for either the pediatric or geriatric groups. Furthermore, the adjusted TAT reading could detect fever in individual patients adequately in both the pediatric and geriatric groups. However, the adjusted TAT readings were too frequently divergent from RT readings to be used to measure temperature in individual patients for both pediatric and geriatric groups.Contribution to Emergency Nursing Practice●Temporal artery temperature (TAT) readings used for patients presenting to the emergency department must be adjusted and used with caution and attention to their limitations.○Adjusted TAT readings should not be used with patients for whom an accurate reading is imperative for clinical decision making.○Adjusted TAT readings may be used to detect fever.○Group average adjusted TAT readings may be used in research.