Abstract
BackgroundMany parents consider fever a disease in itself and feel disempowered when their child is ill. Numerous guidelines have been produced; however, their target audience remains healthcare professionals and not carers of children in general. A reliable source of information will decrease worry in parents and carers when managing a febrile child.Methods/DesignA systematic search will be conducted in nine electronic databases. Articles published in English, or with an abstract published in English, will be eligible for inclusion in the review. Unpublished literature, grey literature and consultation with experts in the area will be used to supplement database searching. Titles and abstracts of studies will be screened for inclusion in the study by two independent reviewers against pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria. A data extraction form will be designed and data will be extracted to provide detail of the included studies by a further two reviewers. Quality assessment of studies will be conducted by two additional independent reviewers and results will be used to moderate included studies. All disagreements will be resolved through discussion until consensus is reached. Thematic synthesis will be used to analyse results.DiscussionCorrect management of fever in children is not well understood in the general population. Although carers can identify fever and febrile illness in children, determination of the severity of fever proves challenging. Research is needed to cohere existing evidence and identify knowledge gaps. It is envisaged that results of this review will contribute to the development of trustworthy, accessible guidelines for parents and carers of children with fever or febrile illness.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO CRD42014009812
Highlights
Many parents consider fever a disease in itself and feel disempowered when their child is ill
It is envisaged that results of this review will contribute to the development of trustworthy, accessible guidelines for parents and carers of children with fever or febrile illness
The aim of this review is to systematically review the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of carers of children with regard to the management of fever and febrile illness in children
Summary
Many parents consider fever a disease in itself and feel disempowered when their child is ill. Parents feel disempowered when their child is sick [8] and many interpret fever as a disease in itself [9]. Parents become concerned [6,10,11,12] and anxious [13,14,15,16,17,18] when their child has a fever and find it difficult to interpret the severity of their child’s illness [8]. Febrile convulsions remain the focus of parental and many healthcare practitioners concern, and fever is regarded as the main cause of febrile convulsions [6,17,22,24,32,33,34,35,36,37]
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