Evaluation of Fever-Related Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Mothers of Children with Chronic Diseases: A Descriptive Study

Year 2023, Volume: 7 Issue: 1, 223 - 234, 31.01.2023

Serpil Boran İlknur Kahriman

https://doi.org/10.30621/jbachs.1090169

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Purpose: This research was conducted in a descriptive design to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the mothers of hospitalized children with chronic diseases about fever.

Methods: The study was conducted with the mothers of hospitalized children with a chronic disease in the pediatric clinics of a university hospital between 01 September 2018 and 28 February 2019. Considering the frequency as 50%, and the deviation as 0.05, the sample size was calculated as 384 mothers, and this number was increased to 400. The data were collected with the face-to-face survey method investigating the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of mothers about fever, with the consent of the mothers first.

Results: According to the results, 55.0% of the mothers had primary school or below education, and 30.0% knew normal body temperature. The temperature was measured by touching the forehead of the child (49.6%) by mothers with primary school or below education level, and with a thermometer (73.5%) by those with a university degree. 74.8% took their child to a health institution on the first day of fever. When the fever increased, 33.7% and 18.3% of the mothers first took off the child’s clothes and gave medication to reduce the fever, respectively. Health personnel were the sources of information about the harms of fever for 52.5% of the mothers.

Conclusion: Our study revealed that mothers’ anxiety about fever is common, and their anxiety negatively affects their approach to the child with fever, which ultimately leads to unnecessary hospital admissions.

Keywords

Mothers, fever, knowledge, child, chronic disease, attitude

Supporting Institution

Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit of Karadeniz Technical University

Project Number

TYL-2018-7824.

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