Fever, methods of fever management, and caretakers' perceptions of pediatric after-hour telephone triage and advice services for children between the ages of twelve months and three years with fever
Abstract
Despite the frequency with which fevers occur in children ages 1–3 years, lack of knowledge and understanding about the implications of fever and methods of fever management often results in anxiety among caretakers, sometimes prompting them to seek help at nearby emergency departments. Caretakers often look to health care professionals for advice and guidance over the telephone. The purpose of this study was to investigate caretakers' knowledge of the implications of fever, methods of fever management, perceptions of pediatric telephone triage and advice services regarding fever, and the effectiveness of after hour telephone triage directed toward improving the caretakers' ability to manage their child's fever at home. Pre-triage questionnaires were completed by 72 caretakers over the telephone before the triage encounter. Twenty-two of those same caretakers whose children were triaged using the fever guideline completed and returned the mailed post-triage questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze responses for the larger pre-intervention group and describe comparisons for the pre and post-triage responses in the smaller sample subset (n = 22).
Subject Area
Nursing|Public health
Recommended Citation
Poirier, Patricia Ann, "Fever, methods of fever management, and caretakers' perceptions of pediatric after-hour telephone triage and advice services for children between the ages of twelve months and three years with fever" (1999). ProQuest ETD Collection for FIU. AAI1397528.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/dissertations/AAI1397528