Most childhood ailments often present with fever which account for the most common reasons why parents seek medical care for their children; particularly, the under-five children. The study aimed to assess the mothers' knowledge of fever in their under-five children and how this is managed at home.
This was a descriptive designed study that used a simple random sampling technique to select 100 participants who were mothers of under-five children who presented to the Kwahu Government Hospital, Atibie over a period of six months. A structured questionnaire comprising of close-ended questions were used to collect data. Both secondary and primary data were collected and analyzed. The primary data was analyzed using SPSS version 16.0.
The mothers described fever as hotness of body (63%), shivering (10%), child crying (8%), child being quiet (8%) and sleeping too often (10%). More than half of the respondents (57%) correctly identified the cause of fever as malaria (39%) and infections (18%). Home management of fever involved self-medications (43%), consulting herbalist (20%) as well as tepid sponging (28%) and visiting nearby hospital (62%). Mothers knowledge of childhood fever was statistically significantly associated with their age (p = 0.0001), age of the child (p = 0.04), number of children in a family (p = 0.0001), and level of education of the mothers (p = 0.0001).
Mothers described hotness of the body as fever and knew that malaria and infections causes fever among children. They consulted herbalist among other inappropriate practices in the management of fever.