The Relationship between Hypothermia Duration and Amount of Bleeding After Open Heart Surgery

Aim: This study was conducted to examine the relationship between hypothermia duration and amount of bleeding after open heart surgery. Study Design: This is a retrospective, descriptive, and correlational study. Materials and Methods: The data were obtained by examining the hospital records of 45 patients who underwent open heart surgery between January 2018 and January 2019 in the cardiovascular surgery clinic of an education and research hospital in Istanbul. Results: The mean age of the patients was 65.30 +/- 10.05 years, and 33 (73.3%) of them were women. The mean hypothermia duration of the patients in the postoperative period was 10.35 hours, and the mean amount of bleeding was 600 ml. It was determined that the amount of bleeding increased as the duration of hypothermia increased after open heart surgery (r=0.302, p<0.05), and there was a statistically significant relationship between the presence of chronic disease and body mass index, and the hypothermia duration and the amount of bleeding. Conclusion: In this study, a significant correlation was found between the postoperative hypothermia duration and the amount of bleeding. Prolonged hypothermia after open heart surgery is an important parameter that may adversely affect the amount of bleeding in patients. For this reason, surgical nurses should be aware that hypothermia causes an increase in the amount of bleeding in the early period after cardiac surgery, and awareness of patients should be increased to protect them from hypothermia.