Purpose: This study aimed to identify the effects of parents' fever knowledge, online social support, and e-Health literacy on fever anxiety, and to analyze the mediating effect of fever knowledge. Methods: Data were collected through an online questi...
Purpose: This study aimed to identify the effects of parents' fever knowledge, online social support, and e-Health literacy on fever anxiety, and to analyze the mediating effect of fever knowledge. Methods: Data were collected through an online questionnaire from 164 parents of children aged 5 years or younger residing in D City, South Korea, and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation, multiple regression, and PROCESS macro version 5.0 Model 4. The significance of the mediating effect was verified using 5,000 bootstrap samples. Results: Fever anxiety showed significant positive correlations with fever knowledge (r=.30, p〈.001), online social support (r=.24, p=.002), and e-Health literacy (r=.19, p=.014). Multiple regression analysis showed that only fever knowledge was significantly associated with fever anxiety (β=.25, p=.006, R²=.103, F=6.09, p〈.001). In the mediation analysis, fever knowledge showed a significant full mediating effect in the relationship between online social support and fever anxiety (indirect effect=0.06, 95% bootstrap CI [0.02, 0.14]) and in the relationship between e-Health literacy and fever anxiety (indirect effect=0.09, 95% bootstrap CI [0.03, 0.20]), respectively. Conclusion: It was confirmed that online social support and e-Health literacy improved fever knowledge, and that the improved fever knowledge increased fever anxiety. Therefore, to reduce fever anxiety among parents of children, a process is needed in which healthcare providers interpret and correct the knowledge that parents acquire online to suit the parents' circumstances and level of understanding.