Nursing personnel's attitudes towards fever and antipyresis of adult patients: cross‐sectional survey. Issue 19 (30th January 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kiekkas, Panagiotis; Konstantinou, Evangelos; Psychogiou, Kalliopi‐Styliani; Tsampoula, Iliana; Stefanopoulos, Nikolaos; Bakalis, Nick
• Is Part Of: Journal of clinical nursing. Volume 23:Issue 19/20(2014)
• Page Start: 2949
• Page End: 2957
• Publication Date: 2014-01-30
• Subjects: Nursing -- Periodicals; Clinical medicine -- Periodicals; 610.7305
• DOI: 10.1111/jocn.12551
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0962-1067

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="jocn12551-abs-0001"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <sec id="jocn12551-sec-0001" sec-type="section"> <title>Aims and objectives</title> <p>To investigate the attitudes of nurses caring for hospitalised adult patients towards fever and antipyresis and to identify the predictors of these attitudes.</p> </sec> <sec id="jocn12551-sec-0002" sec-type="section"> <title>Background</title> <p>Fever is a host defence mechanism, whose harmful effects are limited to specific patients. Findings about antipyretic treatment have further challenged the need for routine or aggressive fever suppression. Unfortunately, nurses continue to be fever phobic, while their attitudes towards fever and antipyresis considerably affect antipyretic practice.</p> </sec> <sec id="jocn12551-sec-0003" sec-type="section"> <title>Design</title> <p>Prospective, cross‐sectional, multicentre survey.</p> </sec> <sec id="jocn12551-sec-0004" sec-type="section"> <title>Methods</title> <p>A convenience sample of registered and assistant nurses employed in surgical/medical wards and intensive care units of nine Greek hospitals was enrolled. The developed questionnaire included 10 multiple‐choice, knowledge‐evaluating items about fever and antipyresis, 10 Likert‐type attitude‐evaluating items towards fever and 10 towards antipyresis. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to identify the predictors of attitudes towards fever and antipyresis.</p> </sec> <sec id="jocn12551-sec-0005" sec-type="section"> <title>Results</title> <p>The attitudes of the 458 participants were found to be relatively positive towards both fever and antipyresis. Lower fever/antipyresis knowledge score predicted both negative attitude towards fever (<italic>p </italic>=<italic> </italic>0·001) and positive attitude towards antipyresis (<italic>p </italic><<italic> </italic>0·001), while longer professional experience predicted positive attitude towards antipyresis (<italic>p </italic>=<italic> </italic>0·002).</p> </sec> <sec id="jocn12551-sec-0006" sec-type="section"> <title>Conclusions</title> <p>Advancing nurses' evidence‐based knowledge about fever and antipyresis is expected to limit their tendency to overtreat fever and favour fever care based on the assessment of actual patient demands.</p> </sec> <sec id="jocn12551-sec-0007" sec-type="section"> <title>Relevance to clinical practice</title> <p>These findings highlight the need for continuing education programmes to eliminate fever phobia and improve nurses' competency for individualised fever care.</p> </sec> </abstract>