Dataset Information

Cross-sectional study of parental knowledge, behaviour and anxiety in management of paediatric fever among German parents.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Fever is a common symptom among children. Parental lack of knowledge about fever could cause anxiety and lead to unnecessary measures to subside fever. There is little evidence about German parents' knowledge and their fever management.

Design

A cross-sectional study using a paper-based questionnaire.

Setting

16 kindergartens in Saarbrücken and Saarlouis regional association accepted to participate in the study. Parents from these kindergartens were requested during the pickup time to answer the questionnaire.

Participants

481 German parents participated in the study, 394 of them were women. Inclusion criteria were good understanding of German and being a parent of at least one child below the age of 7 years.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

Knowledge and behaviour of parents on paediatric fever management and the factors influencing fever anxiety.

Results

The older the parents were, the more anxiety they reported. Their definition of fever had a wide range of 30°C-41°C (mean 38.46, SD=0.67) and almost 90% (mean 3.05, SD=2.03) of participants reported fever as useful, whereby they felt more confident the more they found fever useful. 69% of parents felt calm when their child has fever (mean 4.47, SD=2.27). In case of fever, 55% of parents administer paracetamol, 72% ibuprofen and 32% of them would alternate between the two. Paracetamol and ibuprofen are used more by more anxious parents. In explorative factor analysis, reasons to reduce temperature were summarised in three main factors: damage prevention, illness control and well-being protection, whereby the first two were positively related to parental anxiety.

Conclusions

Both knowledge as well as level of confidence/anxiety vary largely. Taking antipyretics is related to higher level of anxiety, indicating the need for further education. Fever anxiety depends on multiple factors, which have to be further investigated.

SUBMITTER: Hamideh Kerdar S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8524294 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:AimThe aim of this literature review was to identify, summarize, and critically appraise available empirical articles on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards childhood fever management among South-East and East Asian parents.DesignA literature review following PRISMA.MethodsArticles were limited to those available in the English language. Articles had to be empirical studies that used a qualitative or quantitative research design with full-text available; focus on parental knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards fever; and be published in South-East and East Asia. Searches were conducted with CINAHL, PubMed and Scopus from inception to June 2022, and eleven articles were included after removing duplicates and excluding irrelevant articles.ResultsNarrative synthesis was conducted according to four themes: source of fever information, knowledge level, attitudes, and practices towards childhood fever. Parents showed different fever knowledge needs and various information-seeking behaviors. A low level of fever knowledge was revealed in terms of temperature, fever causes, potential harms and influencing factors. South-East and East Asian parents mainly reported anxiety, concerns and fever phobia. Fever assessment methods and fever management strategies varied based on parents' cultural background and beliefs.ConclusionsThe findings of this review highlight that inadequacy of fever knowledge and negative attitudes towards childhood fever exist in South-East and East Asian parents. Parents have diverse cultural practices during their children's febrile episodes. However, some of them conflict with current medical guidelines, as they prioritize fever and body temperature reduction. This raises questions about their effectiveness and safety. Although some of them are medically discouraged, there are others that have been proven beneficial for the symptomatic relief of childhood fever. The results indicate an urgent need to develop a cultural-sensitive educational intervention for childhood fever management among South-East and East Asian parents. Unified educational interventions are needed to address parental concerns and fever-related knowledge needs.

Project description:BACKGROUND:We know that parents require resources which can assist them to improve fever knowledge and management practices. The purpose of this study, using an RCT, was to examine the effectiveness of an information leaflet at increasing parental knowledge of fever, specifically temperature definition. METHODS:A prospective, multi-centre, randomised, two-parallel arm, controlled trial with blinded outcome ascertainment was conducted. Parents presenting at purposively selected healthcare facilities who had a child aged ?5 years of age were invited to participate. An information leaflet for use in the trial was designed based on previous studies with parents. Parents in the intervention arm read an information leaflet on fever and management of fever in children, completed a short questionnaire at Time 1 (T1) and again 2 weeks after randomisation at Time 2 (T2). Parents in the control arm did not receive the fever information leaflet but completed the same questionnaire as the intervention arm at T1 and againat T2. The primary outcome was the correct definition of fever (higher than ?38?°C). RESULTS:A total of 100 parents participated in the study at T1. A greater proportion of the intervention group (76%) than the control group (28%) selected the correct temperature (?38?°C) at T1. 76% of the intervention arm correctly identified "higher than ?38°C" as the temperature at which a fever is said to be present compared to 28% of the control arm. After 2 weeks, there was an increase of 6% of parents in the intervention arm (increase to 82.4%) who gave the correct temperature compared to just a 2.8% increase in the control arm (increase to 30.8%). Univariate logistic regression showed that parents in the intervention arm were significantly more likely to give the correct answer at both time-points (T1: OR 8.1; CI 95% 3.3-19.9: p?<?0.01; T2: OR 10.5; CI 95% 3.4-32.0: p?<?0.01). CONCLUSIONS:Our RCT of this simple educational intervention has been shown to improve parental understanding of fever knowledge and correct management strategies. Education interventions providing simple, clear information is a key step to decreasing parental mismanagement of fever and febrile illness in children. TRIAL REGISTRATION:ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02903342, September 16, 2016, Retrospectively registered.