Arterial blood gas: an experiment to study the effects of temperature and time delays on the outcome of a blood gas result

Abstract

An arterialblood gas analysis which is conducted in critical care areas contributes to the assessment of a patient's ventilatory status and acid -base balance. The purpose of this research was to determine the relationship of time delays and temperature on the result of a blood gas analysis. The objective was to either accept or refute the null hypothesis, that there is no relationship between temperature and time delays and an arterial blood gas result Fifteen subjects were randomly selected. The researcher drew three samples of arterial blood from each subject. Ethical principles were observed. An inferential non-parametric statistic was used. The chi-squared test was used to test the hypothesis and the Friedman and the Wilcoxon signed ranks test were used to test the differences between the means.

The results revealed that there was a relationship between time delays, temperature and the arterial blood gas result. The null hypothesis was rejected.