Effectiveness of handmade and standard blankets on post cardiac surgery patients in Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

Rewarming is one of the major factors influencing survival of post-operative cardiac surgical patients and forced-air warming blanket has been regularly used in intensive care unit at Central Chest Institute of Thailand for this purpose. However, this standard blanket is quite costly and irreusable. Thus, the implement of reusable handmade blanket should solve these unsatisfactories.  This research aimed to study the efficacy of rewarming post-operative cardiac surgical patients using standard or handmade blankets in accompany with force-air warming system on scheduled sixty adult hypothermia cardiac surgical patients. Samples were convenience sampling to 30 cases in each of standard or handmade blanket groups in intensive care unit, Central Chest Institute of Thailand. Within 3 hours after rewarming, results showed that core temperature in standard blanket elevated from 35.21 to 36.49 ^oC while handmade blanket rose from 35.12 to 36.58 ^oC. When statistical analysis was performed, no statistical difference had been found in both groups at confidential level of 95%. Hence, it could be concluded that rewarming post-operative cardiac surgical patients via handmade blanket increased core temperature the same as standard blanket.