Fever phobia revisited: Have parental misconceptions about fever changed in 20 years?
Fever phobia revisited: Have parental misconceptions about fever changed in 20 years?
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DOI：
10.1542/peds.107.6.1241
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发表时间：
2001-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
8
通讯作者：
Serwint, J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Crocetti, M;Moghbeli, N;Serwint, J
Objectives. Fever is one of the most common reasons that parents seek medical attention for their children. Parental concerns arise in part because of the belief that fever is a disease rather than a symptom or sign of illness. Twenty years ago, Barton Schmitt, MD, found that parents had numerous misconceptions about fever. These unrealistic concerns were termed "fever phobia." More recent concerns for occult bacteremia in febrile children have led to more aggressive laboratory testing and treatment. Our objectives for this study were to explore current parental attitudes toward fever, to compare these attitudes with those described by Schmitt in 1980, and to determine whether recent, more aggressive laboratory testing and presumptive treatment for occult bacteremia is associated with increased parental concern regarding fever.Methods. Between June and September 1999, a single research assistant administered a cross-sectional 29-item questionnaire to caregivers whose children were enrolled in 2 urban hospital-based pediatric clinics in Baltimore, Maryland. The questionnaire was administered before either health maintenance or acute care visits at both sites. Portions of the questionnaire were modeled after Schmitt's and elicited information about definition of fever, concerns about fever, and fever management. Additional information included home fever reduction techniques, frequency of temperature monitoring, and parental recall of past laboratory workup and treatment that these children had received during health care visits for fever.Results. A total of 340 caregivers were interviewed. Fifty-six percent of caregivers were very worried about the potential harm of fever in their children, 44% considered a temperature of 38.9 degreesC (102 degreesF) to be a "high" fever, and 7% thought that a temperature could rise to greater than or equal to 43.4 degreesC (greater than or equal to 110 degreesF) if left untreated. Ninety-one percent of caregivers believed that a fever could cause harmful effects; 21% listed brain damage, and 14% listed death. Strikingly, 52% of caregivers said that they would check their child's temperature less than or equal to1 hour when their child had a fever, 25% gave antipyretics for temperatures
