Comparisons of Core Temperature Between a Telemetric Pill and Heart Rate Estimated Core Temperature in Firefighters

Background: Firefighters may experience high environmental temperatures or carry out intensive physical tasks, or both, which leads to increased core body temperature and risk of fatalities. Hence there is a need to remotely and non-invasively monitor core body temperature.Methods: Estimated (heart rate algorithm) and actual core body temperature (ingested telemetric pill) measures were collected simultaneously for comparison during training exercises on 44 firefighter volunteers.Results: Prediction of core body temperature varied, with no specific identifiable pattern between the algorithm values and directly measured body core temperatures. Group agreement of Lin's Concordance of 0.74 (95% Upper 0.75, lower CI 0.73), was deemed poor. Conclusion: From individual agreement data Lin's Concordance was variable (Min 0.11, CI 0.13-0.01; Max 0.83, CI 0.86-0.80), indicating that the heart rate algorithm approach was not suitable for core body temperature monitoring in this population group, especially at the higher more critical core body temperatures seen.(c) 2021 Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

In this study, heart rate algorithm was found to be unsuitable for monitoring core body temperature in firefighters, especially at higher critical temperatures. There was no identifiable pattern between the algorithm values and directly measured body core temperatures.