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Assessment and Evaluation of Body Temperature

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Understanding Fever and Body Temperature

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Abstract

Evaluation of body temperature is an important sign of health and disease, in everyday life, for medical decisions, for nursing care, and when ordering laboratory tests. When assessing body temperature, we has to understand thermoregulatory mechanisms, and also consider several ‘errors’, such as the influence of gender, age and the site of measurement. When definitions of normal body temperature as 37 °C and ‘fever’ as 38 °C was established in the 1900 century, little was known about thermoregulation, immunology, and microbiology. Although today there is a general acceptance of body temperature as a range rather than a fixed temperature, the 1871 definitions of normal body temperature and fever still are considered the world-wide norm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmaceutic Research, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Ewa Grodzinsky

  2. Department of Nursing, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Märta Sund Levander

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  1. Ewa Grodzinsky
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  2. Märta Sund Levander
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmaceutic Research, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Ewa Grodzinsky

  2. Department of Nursing, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Märta Sund Levander

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Grodzinsky, E., Sund Levander, M. (2020). Assessment and Evaluation of Body Temperature. In: Grodzinsky, E., Sund Levander, M. (eds) Understanding Fever and Body Temperature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21886-7_7

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