Award Date

1-1-2001

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

Department

Nursing

First Committee Member

Margaret Louis

Number of Pages

93

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Childhood; Fever; Increasing; Knowledge; Parental; Treatment

Controlled Subject

Nursing; Health education

File Format

pdf

File Size

1914.88 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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Rights

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