The effectiveness of strategies for the management and/or prevention of hypothermia within the adult perioperative environment: systematic review.

Inadvertent hypothermia is common in patient's undergoing surgical procedures. Hypothermia within the perioperative environment may have many undesired physiological effects that are associated with significant postoperative morbidity. Patient's temperature drops to below 35°C during the first hour of anaesthesia because of impaired thermoregulatory mechanism and patient getting cold in the operating theatre. For this reason, health care professionals working in the perioperative environment need to know what are the most effective strategies for treating or preventing hypothermia to improving patient outcomes following surgical procedures. However, to date there has been no systematic review of effectiveness with high quality randomised controlled trials to identify effective strategies for the prevention and/or management of hypothermia in the perioperative environment.