Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of pre-warming on body temperature, anxiety, pain, and thermal comfort.
Methods: Forty patients who were scheduled for abdominal surgery were recruited as study participants and were assigned to the experimental or control group. For the experimental group, a forced air warmer was applied for 45-90 min (M=68.25, SD=15.50) before surgery. Body temperature and anxiety were measured before and after the experiment, but pain and thermal comfort were assessed only after the surgery. Hypotheses were tested using t-test and repeated measured ANOVA.
Results: The experimental group showed higher body temperature than the control group from right before induction to two hours after surgery. Post-operative anxiety and pain in the experimental group were less than those of the control group. In addition, the score of thermal comfort was significantly higher in the experiment group.
Conclusion: Pre-warming is effective in maintaining body temperature, lowering sensitivity to pain and anxiety, and promoting thermal comfort. Therefore, pre-warming can be recommended as a preoperative nursing intervention.