background: among the many processes responsible for antimicrobial resistance, inappropriate antibiotic use and self-medication are major public health concerns. To tackle antibiotic resistance and its widespread misuse, is important to identify the social, cultural, and economic differences associated with the problem. Objective: to determine the percentage of antibiotics used without medical prescription in children under five years old with symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection according to their families' socioeconomic characteristics in Ecuador. Materials and Methods: a cross-sectional design was set, using a structured questionnaire to assess mothers who attended urban and rural primary health care units with their children under five years old and belonged to the middle or lower social strata. A sample of 947 individuals was obtained from February to April 2011. Informed consent was acquired from those willing and eligible participants. The descriptive analysis used frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation and chi-square. Quantitative information was processed using SPSS version 17. results: those from lower socioeconomic strata used antibiotics to treat symptoms of upper respiratory infections of their children without medical prescription in a higher percentage (35.57%) than middle socioeconomic strata (27.7%, p<0.01). Mothers who had university level education had more knowledge about measures to prevent antibiotic resistance (57.14%) than those with only a primary school education (13.59% p<0.05). conclusion: antibiotic use in children under five years old with symptoms of upper respiratory infection is high, mainly among those study participants corresponding to lower socioeconomic strata who mostly live in the rural area. MÉD.UIs. 2017;30(2):21-7.
con el fin de: identificar los factores de riesgo, aplicar un programa de intervención educativa, evaluar la adherencia al tratamiento y los conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas (CAPs) relacionadas con la hipertensión arterial. Se realizó un estudio analítico prospectivo con un diseño cuasi-experimental. La muestra fue de tipo clúster e incluyó 100 pacientes en el grupo de intervención y 219 en el grupo de control. La intervención se aplicó durante 12 meses y consistió en actividades educativas, consultorios clínicos grupales y guías clínicas. La media de edad fue de 66,73 años para el grupo de intervención y de 69,26 años para el grupo control, con predominio del sexo femenino en ambos grupos (75% y 71,7%) respectivamente. De los factores de riesgo estudiados presentaron significancia estadística la edad, la instrucción escolar y la adherencia al tratamiento. Se consiguió disminuir la presión arterial sistólica y diastólica en 13,26 y 2,19 mmHg respectivamente. La prevalencia de los factores de riesgo (tabaco, alcohol, sedentarismo) presentó una disminución estadísticamente significativa. Se incrementaron la adherencia (p = 0,001) y el grado de CAPs (p = 0,059). Se concluye que la intervención resultó efectiva para disminuir las cifras de tensión arterial sistólica y diastólica, para reducir algunos factores de riesgo, aumentar la adherencia al tratamiento y el grado de CAPs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.