Fading confidence: A qualitative exploration of parents’ experiences caring for a febrile child
Bibliographic record
Abstract
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To explore parents' experiences with paediatric fever to understand their needs for information and support. BACKGROUND: Paediatric fever is a normal part of childhood, and multiple episodes of fever are a common occurrence between infancy and adulthood. Despite this expectation, paediatric fever often sparks fear and anxiety amongst parents. Existing research has primarily focused on measuring parental deficits, so a more in-depth exploration is helpful to understand the complexities of caring for a febrile child. DESIGN: Qualitative descriptive study. METHODS: Purposive sampling of N = 15 parents from a paediatric emergency department presenting with a febrile child. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in-person or via telephone. Thematic analysis was used to understand the data in the light of our research question. Reporting follows the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research checklist. RESULTS: We found themes of (a) parental confidence through caregiving tasks, (b) emergent feelings of inadequacy, (i) referrals and limitations of community practice, (c) information needs and (d) information sources. Whereas parents were initially confident accessing information, providing care, making decisions and managing symptoms, new signs/symptoms sparked a change in parents' emotions, coping and behaviour. Parents routinely search for information about paediatric fever and value reliable, accessible resources. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight parents' strengths assessing fever and effectively managing symptoms. We are encouraged by the potential for these results to inform the development of empowering resources to help parents make child health decisions during paediatric fever. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Findings provide an evidence base for researchers, clinicians and policymakers to improve care for paediatric patients and families. Parents want clear, reliable and accessible information about decision points associated with paediatric fever. Resources with an empowerment focus may help parents maintain a sense of control when caring for a febrile child.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.015 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".