The impact of fever health education on clinic utilization
J. S. Robinson, M. L. Schwartz, K. S. Magwene, S. A. Krengel and D. Tamburello
Department of Pediatrics, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Panorama City, CA 91402.
We evaluated the ability of an office health education program to (1)
increase parental knowledge about fever in children, (2) improve parental
satisfaction with services, and (3) affect the number of fever-associated
clinic visits. Randomly selected experimental and control groups differed
only in that the former group viewed a slide-tape presentation. Testing of
population samples before and after the presentation disclosed a highly
significant improvement in knowledge about fever in the experimental
population that persisted for almost 6 months. Monitoring of subsequent
clinic visits revealed a 30% to 35% decrease in visits for fever and a 20%
to 25% decrease in all visits for acute problems. These findings suggest
that an audiovisual health education intervention can significantly improve
patient confidence in managing fever as reflected by decreased clinic
visits. This program is potentially useful in both the office and clinic in
a health maintenance organization setting.
