Coping with febrile illness in children : A qualitative interview study of parents
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Date
2019-05-01
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Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate parental perception of febrile illness in their children, the most commonly applied management practices, as well as the expectations from clinicians when coping with fever in children. The study included parents of patients admitted to the Emergency and Observation Department of Children's Clinical University Hospital in Ria, Latvia. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews. All interviews were transcribed, and the transcripts analysed by inductive thematic analysis. Thirty-four parental interviews were analysed. Six themes emerged from the study, which were: signs causing concern; beliefs regarding fever; assessment and monitoring of fever; fever management practices; help-seeking behaviour; and expectations from the healthcare personnel. Many parents believed that fever could potentially cause injuries to the nervous system, kidneys, the brain, other internal organs, and even cause death. The perceived threat of fever resulted in frequent temperature measurements and administration of antipyretics. Meeting the emotional and information needs of the parents were considered as equally important to meeting the child's medical needs. The study found that fever phobia exists among parents. Parental misconceptions of fever lead to overly zealous management practices. Parental education initiatives must be organised in order to improve parental knowledge of fever and its management in children.
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Funding Information: This study was part of the State Research Programme “Biomedicine”, Project No. 5.6.2. “Research on acute and chronic diseases in children of wide age range to develop diagnostic and therapeutic algorithms to reduce mortality, prolong survival and improve quality of life”. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Urzula Nora Urbane et al., published by Sciendo 2019.
Keywords
fever in children, fever phobia, parental concern, 3.2 Clinical medicine, 1.1. Scientific article indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus database, General
Citation
Urbane, U N, Gaidule-Logina, D, Gardovska, D & Pavare, J 2019, 'Coping with febrile illness in children : A qualitative interview study of parents', Proceedings of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, Section B: Natural, Exact, and Applied Sciences, vol. 73, no. 2, pp. 117-124. https://doi.org/10.2478/prolas-2019-0019