The Accuracy of Mother's Touch to Detect Fever in Children: A Systematic Review

Teng, Cheong Lieng; Ng, Chirk Jenn; Hanafi, Nik Sherina; Zailinawati, Abu Hassan; Tong, Seng Fah

doi:10.1093/tropej/fmm077

Cited by 30 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…It was found that experienced mothers were wrong in 50 per cent of the time in diagnosing low-grade fevers (38.3-38.9°C) by touch. 35 Alarmingly, in the current study, there was poor awareness about the real risk of misusing of antipyretics. When we asked the mothers about their beliefs, whether the antipyretics carry a potentially harmful effect on their children, only 32 per cent (202) of them believed in its potential harm.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 60%

Kuwaiti parent's knowledge of their childern's fever and their patterns of use of over the counter antipyretics

Badawy¹,

Alhajraf²,

Alsamdan³

2017

AMJ

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 60%

Kuwaiti parent's knowledge of their childern's fever and their patterns of use of over the counter antipyretics

Badawy¹,

Alhajraf²,

Alsamdan³

2017

AMJ

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“…This study involved children presenting to urban hospital settings rather than to health facilities in rural areas and this could limit the external validity of our findings as it can be difficult for healthcare workers to measure temperature in resource-poor settings. However, our definition of fever (axillary temperature ≥37.5°C or mother's report of fever) is compliant with the WHO definition3 4 and with common practice 27…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Adding fever to WHO criteria for diagnosing pneumonia enhances the ability to identify pneumonia cases among wheezing children

Cardoso

Nascimento‐Carvalho

Ferrero

et al. 2010

Archives of Disease in Childhood

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Objective To examine the ability of the criteria proposed by the WHO to identify pneumonia among cases presenting with wheezing and the extent to which adding fever to the criteria alters their performance. Design Prospective classifi cation of 390 children aged 2-59 months with lower respiratory tract disease into fi ve diagnostic categories, including pneumonia. WHO criteria for the identifi cation of pneumonia and a set of such criteria modifi ed by adding fever were compared with radiographically diagnosed pneumonia as the gold standard. Results The sensitivity of the WHO criteria was 94% for children aged <24 months and 62% for those aged ≥24 months. The corresponding specifi cities were 20% and 16%. Adding fever to the WHO criteria improved specifi city substantially ( to 44% and 50%, respectively). The specifi city of the WHO criteria was poor for children with wheezing (12%). Adding fever improved this substantially ( to 42%). The addition of fever to the criteria apparently reduced their sensitivity only marginally (to 92% and 57%, respectively, in the two age groups). Conclusion The authors' results reaffi rm that the current WHO criteria can detect pneumonia with high sensitivity, particularly among younger children. They present evidence that the ability of these criteria to distinguish between children with pneumonia and those with wheezing diseases might be greatly enhanced by the addition of fever.Pneumonia is still a leading disease in childhood in developing countries. 1 2 The WHO has developed guidelines, based on simple clinical signs, for the identifi cation and treatment of pneumonia in developing countries. 3 4 Despite widespread recognition that the WHO case management strategy has helped to reduce mortality, 5 there is concern that children with non-severe pneumonia are still receiving antibiotics unnecessarily. Studies have reported a lot of antibiotic treatment failure for pneumonia in children with wheeze, 6 7 suggesting they constitute a special group requiring a separate management algorithm. 7 8 We examined the ability of the WHO criteria to identify pneumonia among cases presenting with wheezing and how adding fever to these criteria altered their performance. PATIENTS AND METHODSWe analysed data from a prospective study on children living in São Paulo, Brazil. Details of the clinical data have already been published. 9 Study population and diagnostic defi nitionsChildren aged between 2 and 59 months presenting to the paediatric emergency departments of fi ve public hospitals in a 15-month period were screened by a paediatrician upon arrival. Children with acute lower respiratory tract disease (LRTD) (wheezing, rales, tachypnoea, and/or dyspnoea were considered to be signs of LRTD) whose parents gave informed consent, were recruited into the study, excluding those with: recent history of aspiration (liquid or foreign body); tuberculosis; measles; pertussis; congenital, inherited, neurological, neuromuscular or immunological diseases; cancer; or gastrooesophageal refl ux...

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“…Prior studies have shown that mothers detect fevers in their children with a high sensitivity, although with a lower specificity than when a thermometer is used by a health provider. 31,32 Therefore, our definition may have overestimated the incidence of episodes. However, if the rate of overestimation was similar between the pre-vaccine and vaccine periods, then our estimated IRR would be biased towards the null, suggesting the true reduction in incidence associated with the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine may be even greater than indicated by this analysis.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Diarrhea Incidence Before and After Rotavirus Vaccine Introduction in Nicaragua

Becker‐Dreps¹,

Meléndez²,

L³

et al. 2013

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Abstract. We estimated the incidence of watery diarrhea in the community before and after introduction of the pentavalent rotavirus vaccine in Leó n, Nicaragua. A random sample of households was selected before and after rotavirus vaccine introduction. All children 5 years of age in selected households were eligible for inclusion. Children were followed every 2 weeks for watery diarrhea episodes. The incidence rate was estimated as numbers of episodes per 100 child-years of exposure time. A mixed effects Poisson regression model was fit to compare incidence rates in the prevaccine and vaccine periods. The pre-vaccine cohort (N = 726) experienced 36 episodes per 100 child-years, and the vaccine cohort (N = 826) experienced 25 episodes per 100 child-years. The adjusted incidence rate ratio was 0.60 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.40, 0.91) during the vaccine period versus the pre-vaccine period, indicating a lower incidence of watery diarrhea in the community during the vaccine period.

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The Accuracy of Mother's Touch to Detect Fever in Children: A Systematic Review

Cited by 30 publications

References 20 publications

Kuwaiti parent's knowledge of their childern's fever and their patterns of use of over the counter antipyretics

Kuwaiti parent's knowledge of their childern's fever and their patterns of use of over the counter antipyretics

Adding fever to WHO criteria for diagnosing pneumonia enhances the ability to identify pneumonia cases among wheezing children

Community Diarrhea Incidence Before and After Rotavirus Vaccine Introduction in Nicaragua

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