[Analysis of parental knowledge and care in childhood fever].

OBJECTIVE

To describe the parental knowledge and care of fever in children under 2years. Relate this data with socio-demographic with characteristics.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional and correlation multicenter study.

LOCATION

Five teams of Primary Care in Barcelona.

PARTICIPANTS

Parents of children under 2years attended to administer a vaccine included in the pediatric systematic calendar. A total of 311 subjects participated.

MAIN MEASUREMENTS

The main variables are 9 items of knowledge and 8 of care or management of fever obtained with the adaptation of the questionnaire by Chiappini et al. (2012).

RESULTS

69.8% had a correct care/management of fever. 3.9% matched all items of knowledge. The knowledge score is lower in people with no education (p=0.03); higher in Europe and South America and lowest in Asia and Africa (P<.001). 100% of patients that had chronic problems answered correctly all items of fever care (P=.03). It is important to note that the correlation between the scores of knowledge and management is positive (rho=0.15, P=.008).

CONCLUSIONS

A correct care of fever is observed despite the low knowledge. A good strategy to promote a correct care of febrile child is to do sanitary education with update information and adapted it to parents, focusing on the differences between ethnic groups because they seem to have inaccurate beliefs about fever.