Abstract:
Background: Fever is a very common febrile illness among children in Sri Lanka. There are no
clear guidelines in practice for hospital admission and home management of febrile patients.
Doctor-patient communication has a major impact on health care seeking behavior.
Objectives: To assess parents‟ knowledge, attitudes, practices and satisfaction about doctors‟
communication in fever management.
Methodology: It has two parts. Part-01 is a descriptive cross-sectional study and part–02 is a
qualitative study which was carried out among group of parents who have admitted their
children (aged 2-12 years) to the Teaching Hospital Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Minimum sample
size for part-01 is 400 and for part-02 is a convenient sampling method (20 interviews). Part-01
is a self-administered questionnaire. Part-02 is an interview guide about doctors‟
communication. For part-01, collected data was tabulated in Microsoft Excel and analyzed by
SPSS 25. Descriptive statistics and prevalence were calculated using SPSS 25. For part–02,
qualitative data were analyzed by thematic analysis. Interviews with parents were tape recorded.
Then transcribed the data and identified the primary codes and secondary codes and the final
themes were developed.
Results: Among the population 6.3% mothers had good knowledge, 68.8% mothers had average
knowledge and 25% of mothers had poor knowledge regarding febrile illnesses. There was an
association between mothers‟ educational status and knowledge level (p=0.001). Final themes
about doctors‟ communication were: 1. Satisfaction of doctors‟ communication depends on
service provider; 2. Doctors‟ communication depends on doctors‟ individual qualities; 3.
Doctors‟ communication depends on doctors‟ experience; 4. Sequences of consultation
important in doctors‟ communication; 5. Communication depends on level of delivery in
information; 6. Communication depends on patients‟ qualities.
Conclusions: The levels of knowledge of mothers‟ were satisfactory. Most of the mothers‟
satisfy with doctors‟ communication.