The reliability of mothers to assess the presence of fever in their children

Objective: To assess the reliability of mothers to subjectively detect the absence or presence of fever in their children. Methods: A prospective study was carried out on 1907 children (age 12 years and below) attending the emergency room pediatric triage clinic, King Fahd Hospital of the University in Al-Khobar, Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Their mothers were asked if they have fever or not, before the children's temperature was recorded. Results: The sensitivity and specificity of detecting fever in the children by their mothers through subjective means were 83% with an accuracy rate of 83.4%. Mothers who stated that their children were febrile were correct 56% of the time, while those who said their children were afebrile were correct 95% of the time. The false positive rate was 17% and false negative rate was 5%. Conclusion: The ability of mothers to assess the presence or absence of fever through subjective means was fairly reliable. It could be used as a reasonable screening tool tn rule out presence of fever in children in absence of objective assessment.