Increasing parental knowledge in treatment of childhood fever

Fever is the single most common symptom that causes parents to seek medical attention for their young children (Kramer, Naimark, & Leduc, 1985). Parental lack of knowledge regarding the management of pediatric fever plays a roll in this phenomenon. The problem addressed in this study is inappropriate parental usage of emergency treatment resources for the treatment of non-emergent childhood fevers. This study tested if providing direct and indirect information about childhood fever and its treatment resulted in a decrease of inappropriate emergency room visits for non-emergent pediatric febrile illnesses for a select population; A quasi-experimental design was used with a control and a treatment group. The Neuman Systems Model (1989) for nursing provided the theoretical base for this study; There was no significant change in the number of visits between the two groups, however, the participants that had read the educational handout had inappropriate emergent visits 25% of the time while those that did not read the handout had inappropriate visits nearly 80% of the time; Results of this study suggest that when parents are provided accurate information about pediatric fevers, they are less likely to seek emergent care for their child inappropriately.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

2001

Author dc:creator

• Bishop, Brian D

Contributors dc:contributor

• Margaret Louis

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/1311

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-2310