Attitude and behaviors of mothers regarding fever in children; a Duzce University Faculty of Medicine study

Abstract

Introduction: In mothers with fevercomplaint who applied to Duzce University Faculty of Medicine Research andPractice Hostipal, defining attitude and behaviours and general knowledgelevels about fever are aimed in this study.Methods: 230 patients who wereadmitted to pediatric emergency service and general pediatric outpatientclinics from February to June 2017 were included in the study. Questionnaires with 26 questions were evaluated in this study. Descriptivefeatures, chi-square test and one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s post-hoccomparisons tests were performed in all statistical analyzes.Results: It was learned that 79.1%of the mothers were placing the thermometers under the armpit duringmeasurement. Most of the mothers picked the normal body temperature as35.5-36.4 ° C (57.8%). 74.8% of the mothers considered fever as a disease and98.7% of the mothers thought that fever was harmful. Most of the mothers wereconsidering the advices of doctors on reducing fever of children (48.7%). Themost common intervention to reduce fever was to shower with warm water (73.5%).The most preferred antipyretic was paracetamol (76.1%). As the education levelsincreased, rates of showering with warm water and taking out the children'sclothes were increasing significantly (p=0.027, p=0.025, respectively). Conclusion: In this study, it wasseen that the mother's general knowledge about fever was inadequate and therewere occasionally wrong attitudes and behaviors in order to reduce fever. Wethink that detailed information about fever given to the families by physicianswill prevent unnecessary applications in this area.

Keywords

• fever
• mother
• child
• behaviour
• attitude
• ateş
• anne
• çocuk
• davranış
• tutum