1Assistant Professor, Govt. College of Nursing, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
2Additional Professor, Director, CERTC, Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
3Deputy Director, Nursing Education, DME, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
4Professor, ENT Department, Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
5Assistant professor (Rtd), Consultant Biostatistician, CERTC, Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
To Develop and validate a scale to measure the thermal discomfort in febrile children undergoing sponging. To Compare the thermal discomfort among febrile children undergoing either warm sponging or tepid sponging.
This study consisted of two steps i.e preparation of a Thermal scale and the application of the scale to compare the thermal discomfort in a sample of febrile children undergoing either warm sponging or tepid sponging. It was conducted in two Phases. Qualitative approach for the preparation of scale & Quantitative approach to compare the thermal discomfort.
The reliability of the instrument was estimated by Internal Consistency Reliability; Chronbach's alpha = 0.7534 ? 0.8, The result showed that this scale has an Ideal Reliability index of 0.8. There was significant difference between the discomfort scores of warm sponging & tepid sponging (MW-U 6381.50, P 0.0001)
Thermal discomfort scale developed as a composite outcome and it can be utilized in clinical setting to measure the thermal discomfort in children. The also revealed that warm sponging is better than tepid sponging in reducing thermal discomfort in children.
Febrile Children, Thermal Comfort, Tepid Sponging, Warm Sponging
