Mothers' Perceptions of Fever in Children

Abstract

The fever is one of the commonest symptoms of disease in childhood. A mother's knowledge and conception of fever may determine the degree of her anxiety and fear, and reflect on the way the fever is managed at home. Our understanding of mothers' attitudes may help to improve the home management of fever by correcting unrealistic beliefs. Mothers of 100 children were randomly selected and interviewed to answer a questionnaire about fever. Sixty mothers thought that fever could lead to death, others thought that it might lead to paralysis, mental retardation or brain damage. This may explain their undue anxiety and fear when having a child with fever. Cold exposure, teething, exposure to sunlight and having a warm drink were considered as causes. A minority reduced the child's clothes during fever. Tap water sprinkling and occasionally alcohol were used. Ninety-four mothers used antipyretics, all used paracetamol and 23 per cent used aspirin. Sixty two used antibiotics indiscriminately. Improved health education is required to allay mothers fear and anxiety and promote a more appropriate fever management at home.

Knowledge and management of fever among Moroccan parents

“…This was similar to the findings of previous reports in culturally diverse populations in different countries (6,7,17,19). The parents with higher educational level demonstrated a significantly higher rate of accuracy in their knowledge of fever definition in our study (P = 0.001), in accordance with the findings of previous studies conducted among different populations (20)(21)(22).…”

Beliefs and Expectations of Canadian Parents Who Bring Febrile Children for Medical Care

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Some of this fear is productive. Concerns regarding dehydration and signs that might indicate serious underlying illness are reasonable and important; however, a substantial proportion of parents in our study held unrealistic fears about the consequences of fever and most monitored and treated fever aggressively.…”

“…This is common in other studies as well. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In spite of the numerous studies demonstrating fever phobia, little progress has been made in reducing unrealistic fears and focusing parents' concerns to where they are most appropriate. This may be, at least in part, because health care providers also commonly have unrealistic fears concerning fever.…”

“…Several items regarding feared outcomes and treatment practices were modeled after questions from Schmitt' s 1980 survey 1 to facilitate comparison with this and other studies that have used these questions. [1][2][3][4]6,9,11 Further questions were developed to explore other areas of interest related to parental beliefs, behaviors, expectations, and satisfaction. Included questions utilized multiplechoice, Likert scale, or open-ended response formats.…”

“…Beginning with a survey in 1980, researchers have documented significant degrees of "fever phobia" in parents from numerous countries. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] These fears have contributed to making fever the most common reason for parents to bring their children to the emergency department (ED). 13 Previous studies have demonstrated that parents use a combination of lay beliefs and their interpretation of medical knowledge to assess the welfare of their child during illness.…”