Investigation for unintended perioperative hypothermia and factors affecting thermal perceptions of surgical patients

Although Unintended Perioperative Hypothermia (UPH) is common in patients undergoing surgery, there is limited information about start time and influencing factors. In the study, it was aimed to determine the time of occurrence of UPH during the perioperative process for the patients who underwent surgery and the patients' opinions related to body temperature and affecting factors. Ethical and legal permissions obtained before starting the research. The research is a descriptive, cross-sectional research conducted in a private hospital between October 1, 2020 and March 1, 2021. The sampling of the research composed of 306 volunteer patients. The data of the study were collected after informing the nurses with the introductory information and the perioperative evaluation form. The data were analyzed using the appropriate statistical methods in SPSS 22.0 package program. A value of p <0.05 was accepted for statistical significance. The mean age and Body Mass Index of the patients, respectively; 41.81±16.00, 28.72±5.00 and 74.8% of them are women. During the preoperative period, the UPH incidence of patients was 7.2%, 34.6%, 41.5%, respectively. During the intraoperative period, the UPH incidence of patients was 66%, 89.2%, and 80.4%, respectively. During the postoperative period, the UPH incidence of patients was 85.3%, 37%, and 10.8%, respectively. During the preoperative period, the cold status of patients was 0.3%, 1%, 18.3% respectively, and the cold status during the postoperative period was 74.5%, 40.4%, 0.2%, respectively. During the perioperative process, the most important factor which was affecting the cold of the patients is the absence of clothes on the patients. When the mean age groups of the patients were compared with the body temperature groups during intraoperative period, the difference was found to be statistically significant (p=0.000), (p<0.05). It was detected that there was a negative correlation between the UPH incidence and the duration of surgery and anesthesia (respectively; p=0.000, p=0.000). For the patients undergoing surgery, UPH is seen at a high rate during the intraoperative period. Management of UPH should be done effectively in the intraoperative process. Precautions should be taken for factors affecting the UPH incidence