ArticleArchives of disease in childhood2020
What matters when managing childhood fever in the emergency department? A discrete-choice experiment comparing the preferences of parents and healthcare professionals in the UK.
Article in Archives of disease in childhood, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Evolving Landscape of Discrete Choice Experiments in Health Economics: A Systematic Review.PharmacoEconomics · 2025Pooled it
- Definition and assessment of fever-related discomfort in pediatric literature: a systematic review.European journal of pediatrics · 2024Pooled it
- Assessing inequalities in paediatric emergency department admissions in the Northwest of England: a retrospective cohort study.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Understanding Childhood Fever: A Qualitative Study of Family Attitudes, Emotions, and Caregiving Practices.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Coming in hot: using emotional journey maps to examine parental perceptions associated with presentation of their child with fever to the emergency department in England.BMJ paediatrics open · 2025Article
- Coming in hot: a qualitative investigation into perceptions of parents and doctors of reasons for the presentation of children with fever to the emergency department in England.BMJ paediatrics open · 2024Article
- SBI is uncommon in the absence of paediatricians' gut feeling and abnormal respiratory pattern.Acta paediatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992) · 2022Article
- Differentiating vaccine reactions from invasive bacterial infections in young infants presenting to the emergency department in the 4CMenB era: a retrospective observational comparison.BMJ paediatrics open · 2022Observational
- Integrating Clinical Signs at Presentation and Clinician's Non-analytical Reasoning in Prediction Models for Serious Bacterial Infection in Febrile Children Presenting to Emergency Department.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2022Article
- A NICE combination for predicting hospitalisation at the Emergency Department: a European multicentre observational study of febrile children.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFever among children is a leading cause of emergency department (ED) attendance and a diagnostic conundrum; yet robust quantitative evidence regarding the preferences of parents and healthcare providers (HCPs) for managing fever is scarce.
objectiveTo determine parental and HCP preferences for the management of paediatric febrile illness in the ED.
settingTen children's centres and a children's ED in England from June 2018 to January 2019.
participants98 parents of children aged 0-11 years, and 99 HCPs took part.
methodsNine focus-groups and coin-ranking exercises were conducted with parents, and a discrete-choice experiment (DCE) was conducted with both parents and HCPs, which asked respondents to choose their preferred option of several hypothetical management scenarios for paediatric febrile illness, with differing levels of visit time, out-of-pocket costs, antibiotic prescribing, HCP grade and pain/discomfort from investigations.
resultsThe mean focus-group size was 4.4 participants (range 3-7), with a mean duration of 27.4 min (range 18-46 min). Response rates to the DCE among parents and HCPs were 94.2% and 98.2%, respectively. Avoiding pain from diagnostics, receiving a faster diagnosis and minimising wait times were major concerns for both parents and HCPs, with parents willing-to-pay £16.89 for every 1 hour reduction in waiting times. Both groups preferred treatment by consultants and nurse practitioners to treatment by doctors in postgraduate training. Parents were willing to trade-off considerable increases in waiting times (24.1 min) to be seen by consultants and to avoid additional pain from diagnostics (45.6 min). Reducing antibiotic prescribing was important to HCPs but not parents.
conclusionsBoth parents and HCPs care strongly about reducing visit time, avoiding pain from invasive investigations and receiving diagnostic insights faster when managing paediatric febrile illness. As such, overdue advances in diagnostic capabilities should improve child and carer experience and HCP satisfaction considerably in managing paediatric febrile illness.
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