[Educating Parents about Fever in Childhood Evaluation of the Effect of an Information Leaflet]. / Aufklärung von Eltern zu Fieber im Kindesalter Evaluation der Wirkung einer Informationsbroschüre.

BACKGROUND: Fever is an important immune reaction of the body in infections and plays a major role in childhood. Fear and uncertainty in dealing with fever are still widespread among parents. Information leaflets on the knowledge and handling of fever in childhood can serve as an educational tool for parents. It has not yet been investigated whether this type of information transfer is a suitable tool for educating parents. METHODS: 16 kindergartens in Saarland were visited. 481 parents of at least one child between the ages of 1 and 7 years answered a questionnaire on knowledge, approach and handling of fever in infections. Subsequently, an information leaflet on fever was handed out. On the following day, the questionnaire was answered again by the 190 parents who had read the information leaflet. The change due to reading the information leaflet was analyzed. RESULTS: 40% of the participants read the information leaflet. 87% mothers and 13% fathers participated in the follow-up survey. 10% of the post-survey respondents had a secondary school diploma and 34% had a university degree. After reading, fever was considered useful significantly more often and febrile convulsions and consequential damage were mentioned significantly less often as a reason for fever reduction. CONCLUSION: Information leaflets on fever can be a complementary tool for education, the short-term effect is confirmed, the sustainability needs to be further evaluated. There is also a need to reach the majority.

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

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.