Objective:

to describe the body temperature profile (TC) and the outcome in patients with sepsis assisted in an intensive care unit (UCI).

Method:

retrospective, descriptive and exploratory study. Patients over the age of 18 were included, diagnosed with severe sepsis or septic shock in the period from January to December 2012, assisted in an UCI of a public hospital. Sociodemographic, clinical and outcome variables were built. For the evaluation of the TC, all measures recorded during hospitalization were considered, taken in the axillary region by digital thermometer coupled to the multiparametric monitor. In addition, comparative scenarios were proposed between the number of episodes of fever or hypothermia in the 24 hours after internment and the number of these 24 hours prior to the outcome. The data were collected from physical and electronic medical records.

Results:

105 patients were included, predominantly over 60 years old, male and white. Clinical outcome for 26 patients (24.8 %) was to be discharged, and for 79 (75.2 %) it was death. 8778 TC verifications were observed, being hypothermia the most frequent in the death group (p = 0.00). In the discharge group, measurements within normality were more frequent (p = 0.00). Among the proposed scenarios, there was statistically significant difference between the groups when two or more episodes of fever occurred in the 24 hours prior to the outcome.

Conclusion:

the description of the thermoregulation profile in septic patients showed that the TC is a complementary indicator capable of assisting the team in the clinical practice in order to promote better results.

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