Fever Incidence Is Much Lower in the Morning than the Evening: Boston and US National Triage Data

Introduction: In this observational study, we evaluated time-of-day variation in the incidence of fever that is seen at triage. The observed incidence of fever could change greatly over the day because body temperatures generally rise and fall in a daily cycle, yet fever is identified using a temperature threshold that is unchanging, such as ≥38.0° Celsius (C) (≥100.4° Fahrenheit [F]).Methods: We analyzed 93,225 triage temperature measurements from a Boston emergency department (ED) (2009-2012) and 264,617 triage temperature measurements from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS, 2002-2010), making this the largest study of body temperature since the mid-1800s. Boston data were investigated exploratorily, while NHAMCS was used to corroborate Boston findings and check whether they generalized. NHAMCS results are nationally representative of United States EDs. Analyses focused on adults.Results:...
Source: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Source Type: research