A systematic approach for studying the signs and symptoms of fever in adult patients: the fever assessment tool (FAST)

Table 2 Demographic characteristics of patients who provided FAST assessments (N = 56)

Demographics	Fever Patients	No Fever Patients	Total
Demographics	(N = 19)	(N = 37)	(N = 56)
Age Mean (SD)	54.21 (10.71)	54.70 (10.09)	54.5 (10.21)
Minimum and maximum	29-71	29-71	29-71
Gender	N (%)
Male	10 (53%)	22 (59%)	32 (57%)
Female	9 (47%)	15 (41%)	24 (43%)
Race
White	17 (89%)	32 (86%)	49 (88%)
Black/African-American	1 (5%)	3 (8%)	4 (7%)
Asian	0 (0%)	1 (3%)	1 (2%)
Other and Unknown	1 (5%)	1 (3%)	2 (4%)
Ethnicity
Hispanic	0 (0%)	4 (11%)	4 (7%)
Other
^aSurgery "Yes"	14 (74%)	11 (30%)	25 (45%)
Chemo/Biotherapy "Yes"	6 (32%)	21 (57%)	27 (48%)
Steroids "Yes"	3 (16%)	8 (22%)	11 (20%)
^aAntipyretics "Yes"	18 (95%)	15 (40%)	33 (59%)

^aStatistically significant differences occur between Fever and No Fever Patients for both surgery (p = 0.004) and antipyretics (p < 0.001) using Fisher’s exact test.
Patient demographics in the FAST assessment (N = 56) categorized into two subsets: Fever Patients (N = 19) and No Fever Patients (N = 37). No other category is significant. A “Yes” answer to chemotherapy/biotherapy means that the patient received a chemotherapeutic/biotherapeutic agent during the admission where the symptoms were collected. Steroid and antipyretic use indicates that the patient had these drugs at some time during the admission where fever symptoms were collected

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