Factors influencing the occurrence of hypothermia in patients in the postoperative period

Background: The incidence of accidental postoperative hypothermia in patients treated in general surgery is estimated at approximately 70 %. Hypothermia is associated with many complications mostly including: cardiac arrest, respiratory disorder, electrolyte imbalance, DIC syndrome, impaired wound healing and increase of infections.

Aim of the study: The aim of this study was to identify internal and external factors affecting the occurrence of hypothermia in patients in the postoperative period.

Material and methods: The prospective study included 112 patients surgically treated at University Hospital in Krakow. The study showed that 55 patients experienced post-operative accidental hypothermia. Statistical package STATISTICA for Windows was used for the analysis of dependence between variables. In this study used Wilcoxon pairs, test t-Student, Mann-Whitney U test, ANOVA Kruskal-Wallis test as a methods accepting the p under materiality level under 0.05 and level highly essential p > 0.01.

Results: The factors of postoperative hypothermia in the test group included: long duration of the treatment, its extent and the transfusion of unheated fluids. The longer the operation lasts the greater the drop of temperature is. The less infusion fluid was transfused to patients during surgery, the higher temperature they had after the surgery. There is a significant effect of surgery type on the temperature drop during the operation.

Conclusion: In order to reduce the incidence of occurrence of postoperative hypothermia system of monitoring temperature should be implemented in surgical patients during the suboperative period and standards of conduct should be mastered.