Antibiotic prescribing for upper respiratory infections: European primary paediatricians’ knowledge, attitudes and practice

Abstract

There is a clear need for an educational intervention focused on European primary care paediatricians based on the risk-benefit analysis associated with the antibiotic prescribing for minor URIs, to reduce inappropriate prescribing.

Parents’ Expectations and Experiences of Antibiotics for Acute Respiratory Infections in Primary Care

“…Our findings are largely in line with those of previous studies on parental beliefs about antibiotics' benefits for acute respiratory infections, [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] although our study is among the first to quantify them. Of course, such expectations were not homogeneous across parents and illnesses-parents knew that not using antibiotics is sometimes acceptable, consistent with previous findings.…”

Respiratory tract infections among children younger than 5 years: current management in Australian general practice

“…Nonetheless, this result compared favourably with overseas studies, 6,19,20 where the reported antibiotic prescription rate for URTI was as high as 42%. 6 Similarly, those studies reported the 2 Respiratory problems among children younger than 5 years per 100 encounters, by general practitioner age and sex, and by season, for the four specified respiratory tract infections, [2007][2008][2009][2010][2011][2012] possibly poor medical knowledge of respiratory infections, 21 physicians' perception of parental satisfaction, 8 and parents' misconceptions and expectations regarding the treatment of RTIs, especially the perceived benefits of antibiotics.…”

Physicians’ knowledge, perceptions and behaviour towards antibiotic prescribing: a systematic review of the literature

“…In addition, three of the studies had a response rate less than 50% (29,50,51), which can be a limitation to the generalization of the results of these studies. In some of the studies, participants were from different specialties and treating different infectious diseases (51)(52)(53)(54), while other studies were specific and a certain disease condition such as paediatric common colds (49), URTIs (29,35,50,55,56), and surgical site infections (57). In some of the studies, the authors stated that the respondents may be triggered to the topic and gave socially desirable answers [23].…”

“…The study setting was ambulatory care in eight studies (29,35,48,49,56,(60)(61)(62), hospital setting in seven studies (51,52,54,57,63,64) and both primary and hospital care in four studies (39,50,55,58). Sixteen studies focused solely on physicians, while three studies included pharmacists, patients or the general public.…”

“…Among other reported reasons for prescribing antibiotics were the severity of illness and duration of infections (35), to avoid secondary bacterial infections (35,55), or because of uncertainty between bacterial or viral infections (55), following patients' request or perceived request (49,50,60,61,66), and afraid of losing patients (49,60). More than half of European primary care paediatricians (65.1%) reported of using delayed antibiotic prescribing in management of URTIs, a method which is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) (55).…”