Objective To describe antibiotic prescription rates for Australian Aboriginal children aged <2 years living in three remote Northern Territory communities. Design A retrospective cohort study using electronic health records. Setting Three primary health care centres located in the Katherine East region. Participants Consent was obtained from 149 mothers to extract data from 196 child records. There were 124 children born between January 2010 and July 2014 who resided in one of the three chosen communities and had electronic health records for their first two years of life. Main outcome measures Antibiotic prescription rates, factors associated with antibiotic prescription and factors associated with appropriate antibiotic prescription.
Children aged 6-24 months are at high risk of iron deficiency and iron deficiency anaemia (IDA) due to large physiological iron demands for rapid growth and development. 1 Untreated iron deficiency and IDA in young children may result in irreversible cognitive damage with substantial health, social and economic consequences. 2,3 Indigenous children globally, 4 and in Australia 5,6 experience greater risk of iron deficiency, the most common cause of anaemia. 2,4,7 Anaemia is defined as low levels of the
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