Comfort, Satisfaction, and Anxiolysis in Surgical Patients Using a Patient-Adjustable Comfort Warming System: A Prospective Randomized Clinical Trial

Comfort warming systems aim to produce a comfortable local environment over which the individual patient has control. We studied a patient-adjustable comfort warming system using the Bair PAWS (Patient Adjustable Warming System) (Arizant Healthcare, Inc, Eden Prairie, MN), specifically to study comfort warming rather than therapeutic warming. One-hundred thirty patients were enrolled in this prospective randomized clinical trial, with 58 patients randomized to the patient warming gown, and 72 randomized to the warm blanket group. Groups were similar for gender, age, height, weight, surgical time, body surface area, and body mass index. The patient-adjustable warming system group had perceived greater control and satisfaction at 30 minutes after treatment was initiated compared with the warmed blanket control group. However, there were no differences in satisfaction levels with thermal comfort among those patients contacted one day postoperatively. Additional research is needed to improve external validity of study findings. Further refinement of a nursing definition of thermal comfort should be explored.

Keywords: normothermia, hypothermia, PACU, perianesthesia, comfort warming