Inadvertent hypothermia: clinical validation in postanesthesia patients

The nursing diagnosis of hypothermia contains a variety of defining characteristics and an inconsistency in an exact temperature measurement for this diagnosis. A review of the literature from surgery, anesthesiology, and physiology identified criteria for three types of hypothermia: inadvertent, accidental, and intentional. In addition to the three types, three different core temperatures were given to facilitate medical diagnosis of these types. This study examines inadvertent hypothermia in postanesthesia patients. The findings indicated that inadvertent hypothermia characteristics are distinctly different from the global nursing diagnosis of hypothermia. Future studies are recommended to confirm the findings from this study and to validate accidental and intentional types of hypothermia.