A comparison of warming interventions on the temperatures of inpatients undergoing colorectal surgery.

This study compared the effects of two different warming interventions in the preoperative setting on the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative temperatures of patients undergoing colorectal surgery in an inpatient setting. The study was performed to determine whether prewarming patients for at least 30 minutes would result in postoperative temperatures of 36° C (96.8° F) or higher within 15 minutes of their arrival in the postanesthesia care unit. The results indicated that prewarming devices did not result in reduced proportions of patients who subsequently experienced hypothermia. One reason may be that all the patients were warmed with a forced-air warming device before induction in the OR. Our study does not recommend a specific intervention for a prewarming strategy but indicates that prewarming may contribute to normothermia in the immediate postoperative period.