Thermal comfort
Sue Seitz, MSN, RN, CNS, CNOR, calls that feeling thermal comfort — the psy-
chological state of the human mind that is satisfied with the temperature of the
environment. It's what happens when you've properly warmed a patient
throughout the perioperative process. Ms. Seitz, a clinical practice specialist at
Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital in Greenville, S.C., theorizes that when a
patient is able to control his physiological response to a frigid OR, he's likely to
be in less pain. "When you're anxious, you're usually cold," she says. "If a
patient has more thermal comfort in post-op, there might be a decreased use of
narcotics."
Theresa Criscitelli, EdD, RN, CNOR, assistant director of professional nursing
practice and education at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y., puts it
simply. "Most often, we look towards the very technical and medically based
ideas, but maybe it is much simpler than that. What about simply having more
control over the environment and providing thermal comfort to the surgical
patient?"
While there's little research about patient thermal comfort, it's clear that tem-
perature is an integral component of a patient's perception of well-being during
the perioperative experience, according to "Effects of comfort warming on pre-
operative patients," a 2006 study in the AORN Journal.
"When patients look back upon their surgical stay, the surgical experience
includes the feelings of thermal comfort or possibly discomfort," says Ms.
Criscitelli. "These feelings will have an effect on the patient's overall satisfaction
of the hospital experience. Providing passive and active forms of warming, espe-
cially ones that are controlled by the patient, can enable the patient to associate
comfort with the surgical experience."
Mr. Long says many of his patients have described how their uncontrollable
shivering in the recovery room that seems to last forever actually hurt more than
their surgical incisions. "Most patients only remember waking up in the PACU,
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