One winter night in 2011, pediatrician Dr. Masahiko Sakamoto met two parents and a feverish infant who would shape the course of his career.
Then, Sakamoto learned that the parents had driven 1.5 hours from a small mountain village to reach the hospital.
The experience alerted Sakamoto to a broader pattern: Parents with a limited understanding of childhood illnesses can become especially anxious when their child gets sick and end up seeking unnecessary medical care. Pediatricians in both Japan and the U.S. have described a similar trend to me in the context of antibiotics; parents sometimes request antibiotics that aren't needed, in part because they believe the drugs will alleviate their child's suffering.
"What I am currently most interested in as a pediatrician," he said, "is how to provide accurate medical information to the parents or guardians of the children."
Nicoletta Lanese/Live ScienceNicoletta Lanese/Live ScienceNicoletta Lanese/Live ScienceNicoletta Lanese/Live ScienceHe started giving public lectures on these topics. Later, he wrote manuals of childhood illness, featuring adorable illustrations and plain-language explanations. In 2016, those manuals went digital. The free "Oshiete! Doctor" app, whose name translates to "Teach me! Doctor," has been downloaded more than 500,000 times in Japan, with approximately 100,000 active users, Sakamoto told me.
"As a parent, I'm really grateful to have something like that — a resource that makes it easy to access information — right at my fingertips," said Rie Shinohara, another mother of two in Saku.
The app also includes guidance on when children should visit a hospital and explanations of common childhood illnesses and injuries, such as what medications might reasonably be prescribed and how to manage mild symptoms at home.
Rie Shinohara, Saku-based mother of two
Sakamoto and colleagues have studied the app's impact on caregivers. For instance, they've found evidence that app users utilize the emergency department more appropriately than nonusers do. In that study, 87% of users said the app made it easier to decide whether to visit the hospital, and 94% said they'd recommend it to others.
Challenges of educating parents
"The phenomenon known as 'fever phobia' among parents has long been recognized, and it is not unique to Japan," Sakamoto said. Notably, the American Academy of Pediatrics offers similar guidance to the "Oshiete! Doctor" app regarding fever, emphasizing that the symptom doesn't always require medical care and giving tips for when a doctor should be called.
"With the first child, you just don't know. Why does he have a fever?" Shinohara noted. Of her firstborn, she added, "I probably took him to the doctor more often than necessary." But by her second, she felt she developed a better sense of when to seek medical care. Sakamoto's hope is that his app can help fill that information gap sooner.
Courtesy of Dr. Masahiko SakamotoCourtesy of Dr. Masahiko SakamotoCourtesy of Dr. Masahiko SakamotoSakamoto credits some of that improvement to the incentive offered to pediatricians to avoid unnecessary antibiotics, which requires that doctors explain appropriate antibiotic use to caregivers. He thinks the message is likely more powerful for parents when it comes from their pediatrician, rather than government information campaigns. That said, Sakamoto emphasized that it's important to have strong educational materials available to help support doctors' explanations to parents.
"Their knowledge about fever, how to manage fever, and also the appropriate use of antibiotics was enhanced, whereas the fear about the children's fevers worsened," Sakamoto said. "Even when knowledge improves, emotional anxiety does not easily disappear; this is one of the challenges of public education."
Related storiesOther challenges include the rising use of AI chatbots among parents, Sakamoto noted. He's encountered parents whose anxiety was triggered by erroneous information from a chatbot that suggested their child's prognosis was worse than it was, for instance. "It is rather rare to see that the parents have holistically accurate information from AI," he told me.
"We have the responsibility to check how the information is delivered to the parents or guardians and how it leads to behavioral changes," Sakamoto said. "So it is not just us disseminating information but whether or not it is truly received."
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.
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