Effective Fever Treatment
Fever affects around 70% of pre-school children every year. Giving children either paracetamol or ibuprofen is effective in reducing fever.
A study published in the British Medical Journal found that giving children either paracetamol or ibuprofen or a combination of the two was effective in reducing fever.
The researchers found that in the first four hours, temperature was reduced faster and for longer in children given ibuprofen compared with those given paracetamol. They also found that the two medicines in combination were not markedly better than just giving ibuprofen.
A systematic review and meta-analysis comparing the tolerability and safety between ibuprofen and paracetamol when used as anti-pyretic and analgesic agents in children up to 18 years of age found that ibuprofen, paracetamol and placebo have similar tolerability and safety profiles in terms of gastrointestinal symptoms, asthma and renal adverse effects.
A study comparing single dose efficacy of ibuprofen and paracetamol to treat children with fever of non-serious origin found both agents to be equally well tolerated.
However, compared with parents in the paracetamol group, significantly more parents in the ibuprofen group rated the drug as very efficacious, and reported that they would use the drug again in both the double-blind and open-label phases of the study.