Which vital sign is least likely affected by shock?

When assessing vital signs in the context of shock, temperature is often the least likely to be impacted. While heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate typically change in response to shock—often increasing as the body attempts to compensate for decreased perfusion—temperature tends to remain relatively stable in the early stages of shock.

In many shock states, such as hypovolemic or cardiogenic shock, the body’s compensatory mechanisms prioritize maintaining blood flow to vital organs by adjusting heart rate and respiratory rate and by constricting blood vessels, which can affect blood pressure significantly. However, these changes do not always lead to immediate fluctuations in body temperature. In fact, temperature may actually drop in certain types of shock, such as septic shock, when the body is unable to mount an adequate immune response, but it is not typically a direct indicator of shock severity.

Thus, temperature is considered the least likely of the vital signs to be directly influenced by shock, whereas the others are more readily altered as the body responds to the physiological stresses of shock.