A survey comparing attitudes of doctors, nurses and parents towards treating fevers in children reveals that parents tend to treat high temperatures much more aggressively than health professionals do.

A low fever can actually benefit a sick child, and the researchers attributed parental tendencies to "fever phobia" -- a fear that fever is harmful -- which they say originated after the introduction of anti-fever drugs like Tylenol.

A group of Israeli researchers obtained their results from a questionnaire sent to more than 2,000 parents, doctors and nurses regarding fevers in children older than 3 months. The researchers defined fever as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal body temperature, which is around 98.6 degrees. The survey included questions on risks of fever, dosages of anti-fever drugs and when children should be treated.

The investigators found that only 43% of parents knew that a fever below 100.4 degrees can be beneficial to a child, in contrast to 86% of the doctors and 64% of the nurses who responded to the survey.

The majority of parents also said they would treat a fever below 100.4 even if the child has no other symptoms, something with which only 11% of doctors agreed.

A fever can actually help sick children. The body basically, is trying to do the right thing. Bugs like to live at body temperature. So if you raise the temperature, you kill them off. And contrary to what parents may believe the body can function very efficiently at temperatures as high as 100.5 degrees.

While seizures from fevers are scary for parents, a previous study showed febrile seizures caused no long-term neurological damage. In contrast, fever-related seizures only occur at very high temperatures -- around 108 degrees.

In the case of fever-related seizures, parents should be more concerned that meningitis or bacteria in the blood may be causing the seizure than the child's fever.

Patient Education and Counseling January 2002;46:61-65