Appropriate duration of measuring infant's body temperature at the axilla and the rectum

Background and As the importance of body temperature measurment in diagnosis and treatment monitoring, this study was conducted to evaluate the appropriate duration of measuring the body temperature at the axilla and rectum in infants hospitalized in Emam Reza hospital in Bojnord in 2000. In this cross-sectional study 48 under one year infants hospitalized in pediatric wards were selected. Infants body temperature were measured at the axilla and rectum in different times. The temperatures at axilla were measured at 1 minute intervals for 10 minutes, and at the rectum were measured at 1 minutes intervals for 5 minutes by mercury thermometer. The data was analyzed using Pearson Correlation Co-efficient, One-way Analysis of Variance, and Tukey Test. There were significant differences between the temperature recorded at 1 minutes with temperatures recorded at 2-10 minutes (p=0.001), and temperature recorded at 2 minutes with temperature at 9 and 10 minutes (p=0.001). There were not any significant differences between temperature at 3 minutes with later times. At rectum, there was a significant difference between 2 and 5minutes. Appropriate suggested duration of infants’ body temperature measurement at axilla is 3 and in rectum is 2 minutes.