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Fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among German and Turkish mothers in Germany
BACKGROUND: Fever is one of the most common presenting complaints in paediatrics and general practice. In the majority of cases nothing harmful is diagnosed. However, the subjective meaning of fever often varies between doctors and parents. Knowledge of the parents' concept of fever may help ta...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2011
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3118121/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21605413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-11-41 |
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author | Langer, Thorsten Pfeifer, Miriam Soenmez, Aynur Tarhan, Bilge Jeschke, Elke Ostermann, Thomas |
author_facet | Langer, Thorsten Pfeifer, Miriam Soenmez, Aynur Tarhan, Bilge Jeschke, Elke Ostermann, Thomas |
author_sort | Langer, Thorsten |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Fever is one of the most common presenting complaints in paediatrics and general practice. In the majority of cases nothing harmful is diagnosed. However, the subjective meaning of fever often varies between doctors and parents. Knowledge of the parents' concept of fever may help tailor counselling to their needs. In this study we determine 1) the influence of socio-economic status and cultural background on two concepts of fever which we labelled "functional" and "fearful", each representing typical experiences of mothers, and 2) the actions taken by the mothers related to these concepts. METHODS: A standardized interview study was conducted among German and Turkish mothers in Germany in 2009. The questionnaire consisted of 36 questions and 205 items. Interviews were conducted in 16 private practices of paediatricians and 2 paediatric emergency departments in an urban region of Germany. The two fever concepts were represented in 6 statements that could be rated with a six-point Likert scale. The association of the socio-economic status and the cultural background with one of the fever concepts was determined by a multiple logistic regression. RESULTS: A total of 338 mothers (49% with a Turkish background) completed the interview (response rate 92%). The average age of mothers with a German background was higher (34.1 years vs. 32.0 years, p = 0.0001). Mothers with a Turkish background were more likely to relate to the concept "fearful" [adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) 1.99; confidence interval (CI) 1.16-3.44]. Mothers with a middle or high socio-economic status were more likely to respond to the concept "functional" [middle: AOR, 0.53; CI, 0.30-0.92; high: AOR, 0.44; CI, 0.21-0.95]. Mothers adhering to the concept "fearful" more often gave acetaminophen before the recommended interval of 6 hours (46.8% vs. 31.3%, p = 0.005) and visited out-of-hours services more frequently in the preceding 9 months than the other group (0.7 vs. 0.4, p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: A Turkish migrant background and a low socio-economic status are associated with the fever concept "fearful". Mothers with these attributes seem to require specific and reassuring counselling as they use antipyretic drugs extensively and out-of-hours services frequently. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3118121 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2011 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-31181212011-06-19 Fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among German and Turkish mothers in Germany Langer, Thorsten Pfeifer, Miriam Soenmez, Aynur Tarhan, Bilge Jeschke, Elke Ostermann, Thomas BMC Pediatr Research Article BACKGROUND: Fever is one of the most common presenting complaints in paediatrics and general practice. In the majority of cases nothing harmful is diagnosed. However, the subjective meaning of fever often varies between doctors and parents. Knowledge of the parents' concept of fever may help tailor counselling to their needs. In this study we determine 1) the influence of socio-economic status and cultural background on two concepts of fever which we labelled "functional" and "fearful", each representing typical experiences of mothers, and 2) the actions taken by the mothers related to these concepts. METHODS: A standardized interview study was conducted among German and Turkish mothers in Germany in 2009. The questionnaire consisted of 36 questions and 205 items. Interviews were conducted in 16 private practices of paediatricians and 2 paediatric emergency departments in an urban region of Germany. The two fever concepts were represented in 6 statements that could be rated with a six-point Likert scale. The association of the socio-economic status and the cultural background with one of the fever concepts was determined by a multiple logistic regression. RESULTS: A total of 338 mothers (49% with a Turkish background) completed the interview (response rate 92%). The average age of mothers with a German background was higher (34.1 years vs. 32.0 years, p = 0.0001). Mothers with a Turkish background were more likely to relate to the concept "fearful" [adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) 1.99; confidence interval (CI) 1.16-3.44]. Mothers with a middle or high socio-economic status were more likely to respond to the concept "functional" [middle: AOR, 0.53; CI, 0.30-0.92; high: AOR, 0.44; CI, 0.21-0.95]. Mothers adhering to the concept "fearful" more often gave acetaminophen before the recommended interval of 6 hours (46.8% vs. 31.3%, p = 0.005) and visited out-of-hours services more frequently in the preceding 9 months than the other group (0.7 vs. 0.4, p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: A Turkish migrant background and a low socio-economic status are associated with the fever concept "fearful". Mothers with these attributes seem to require specific and reassuring counselling as they use antipyretic drugs extensively and out-of-hours services frequently. BioMed Central 2011-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3118121/ /pubmed/21605413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-11-41 Text en Copyright ©2011 Langer et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Langer, Thorsten Pfeifer, Miriam Soenmez, Aynur Tarhan, Bilge Jeschke, Elke Ostermann, Thomas Fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among German and Turkish mothers in Germany |
title | Fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among German and Turkish mothers in Germany |
title_full | Fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among German and Turkish mothers in Germany |
title_fullStr | Fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among German and Turkish mothers in Germany |
title_full_unstemmed | Fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among German and Turkish mothers in Germany |
title_short | Fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among German and Turkish mothers in Germany |
title_sort | fearful or functional - a cross-sectional survey of the concepts of childhood fever among german and turkish mothers in germany |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3118121/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21605413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-11-41 |
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