Young Joo Park; Seong-Hi Park; Chang-Bum Kang

doi:10.4040/jkan.2013.43.6.746

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Original Article
Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses of Diagnostic Accuracy of Infrared Thermometer when Identifying Fever in Children: Young Joo Park, Seong-Hi Park, Chang-Bum Kang; Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing 2013;43(6):746-759.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4040/jkan.2013.43.6.746
Published online: December 31, 2013

¹College of Nursing, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.

²School of Nursing, Pai Chai University, Daejeon, Korea.

³Research Development Team, Korea Health Promotion Foundation, Seoul, Korea.

Address reprint requests to: Park, Seong-Hi. School of Nursing, Pai Chai University, 155-40 Baejae-ro, Seo-gu, Daejeon 302-735, Korea. Tel: +82-42-520-5104, Fax: +82-70-4362-6291, shpark@pcu.ac.kr

• Received: August 8, 2013 • Accepted: November 1, 2013

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Abstract
REFERENCES
Appendix

Abstract

Purpose
Infrared thermometers are increasingly used as a convenient, non-invasive assessment method for febrile children. However, the diagnostic accuracy of the infrared thermometer for children has been questioned, particularly in relation to sensitivity and specificity. The aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic accuracy of infrared thermometers in febrile children.
Methods
Articles published between 1966 and 2012 from periodicals indexed in the Ovid Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane, KoreaMed, NDSL, KERIS and other databases were selected, using the following keywords: 'infrared thermometer'. The QUADAS-II was applied to assess the internal validity of the diagnostic studies. Selected studies were analyzed using meta-analysis with MetaDisc 1.4.
Results
Nineteen diagnostic studies with high methodological quality, involving 4,304 children, were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that the pooled sensitivity, specificity and AUC (Area Under the Curve) of infrared tympanic thermometers in children over 1 year were 0.80 (95% CI 0.78, 0.81), 0.94 (95% CI 0.93, 0.95) and 0.95 respectively. However the diagnostic accuracy of infrared tympanic thermometers in children with hyperthermia was low.
Conclusion
The diagnostic accuracy of infrared tympanic thermometer was similar to axillary and rectal thermometers indicating a need for further research to substantiate these findings in children with hyperthermia.
Keywords: Thermometer; Sensitivity; Specificity; Meta-analysis; Child

REFERENCES

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Appendix

APPENDIX

Figure 1

Flow diagram of article selection.

Figure 2

Diagnosis test accuracy of thermometers.

Table 1

Characteristics of Selected Studies

TP=True positive; FP=False positive; FN=False negative; TN=True negative; SN=Sensitivity; SP=Specificity; PLR=Positive likelihood ratio; NLR=Negative likelihood ratio; DOR=Diagnosis odds ratio; ED=Emergency department; IFT=Infrared forehead thermometer; A=Axillary thermometer; ICU=Intensive care unit; ITT=Infrared tympanic thermometer; R=Rectal thermometer; TC=Clinical Infrared tympanic thermometer; TH=Home-use Infrared tympanic thermometer; TA=Temporal artery thermometer; O=Oral thermometer; C=Core thermometer; B=Bladder; SL=Sub-lingual.

Table 2

Summary results of Meta-analysis

AUC=Area under the curve; SE=Standard error.

Figure & Data

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