Table III.

Distribution of views (agrees, neutral, and disagrees) on 14 statements regarding fever phobia and effects of paracetamol in feverish children, and percentage of parents within each view group who have given paracetamol to a child at any time.

	Agrees (partly/fully)		Neutral2		Disagrees (partly/fully)
	n	% of these who have given paracetamol	n	% of these who have given paracetamol	n	% of these who have given paracetamol	p-value1
A:
Fever is the body's reaction to an illness	91	73.6	5	80.0	4	100.0	0.474
A very high fever may harm3 children, and should be reduced*	77	79.2	10	80.0	13	46.2	0.036
A very high fever may cause boiling of the child, and should be reduced*	58	74.1	16	81.3	26	73.1	0.816
A very high fever may cause brain damage in children, and should be reduced*	34	76.5	35	77.1	31	71.0	0.821
A very high fever may worsen the illness of the child*	24	70.8	25	84.0	51	72.5	0.481
A child can more easily fight a disease without the fever	21	71.4	27	74.1	52	76.9	0.879
Fever helps in fighting the disease, and should NOT be reduced	47	76.6	16	75.0	37	73.0	0.930
B:
When a child has a fever and receives paracetamol… the child has a faster recovery	16	87.5	10	80.0	74	71.6	0.383
… the child feels better	89	73.0	4	100.0	7	85.7	0.378
… the child has more appetite	45	86.7	27	70.4	28	60.7	0.036
… the child is more eager to drink	41	78.0	34	76.5	25	68.0	0.639
… the child is more alert	78	79.5	9	44.4	13	62.2	0.062
… the child sleeps easier	86	77.9	8	75.5	6	33.3	0.051
… the medication prevents fever seizures	41	87.8	46	67.4	13	61.5	0.044

Notes: Parents agreeing with one or more of the items labelled with * were defined as fever phobic (n = 85).

¹These relationships are assessed with a chi-squared test of which the p-value is listed.

²The neutral group includes all parents responding “Do not know” and “Neither agrees, nor disagrees”.

³Harm is defined as danger associated specifically with the rise in temperature.