A fever management education program for paediatric nurses

Overview

Project status: In progress

During a research program investigating paediatric nurses' management of fever a theoretically based education program was developed, implemented and evaluated. This program successfully increased nurses' knowledge of fever and fever management. Additionally, it made their attitudes toward fever and fever management more positive and intentions to practice and antipyretic administration evidence-based.

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Organisational unit
Lead unit Faculty of Health Other units
Research area
Health Services
 

Details

To enhance paediatric fever management both nationally and internationally, this manual has been designed to assist paediatric nurses and nursing educators to prepare, present and evaluate a theoretically based educational program to promote evidence-based fever management. The program is:

  • based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, a behaviour change theory used extensively to promote changes in health behaviour and changes in nursing practice, eg., as required opioid administration
  • organised around four one-hour sessions with recommended references (PDF file, 25.29 KB) and includes:
These additional items complement the session through enhancement of the session content and promote the utilisation of the new information in the participant's clinical area.

The manual begins with an introduction to fever in childhood followed by the influence fever has been found to exert on parents and nurses. Following this are three chapters to assist the person preparing to present the program. The first chapter introduces fever; the next contains an extensive review of current literature about fever and fever management upon which the program has been developed. Chapter 3 describes the theoretical basis for the educational program, the Theory of Planned Behavior, and its role in this education program. The program and its implementation are described in detail in Chapters 4 and 5. Chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 present the sessions in detail, with presenter instructions and guides.

A number of Appendices are included. These contain prepared overheads for each session, case studies for discussion during one of the sessions, the workbooks for participants and brief literature updates for participants. If the presenter should wish to receive feedback of the session and the utilisation of session content, evaluation forms for each session are also included. Reference articles for distribution during the sessions have not been included due to copyright issues. However, a list of references articles suitable for each session is available at the beginning of each session. Finally the manual contains some information on facilitation skills to assist novice facilitators to present the program. To assist ease in running the program, a compact disk containing files of all information necessary to run the program is included.

Order your Fever Management Education Package (PDF file, 81.33 KB).