Respiratory Tract Infections in Children in Primary Healthcare in Poland

Abstract

Respiratory tract infections are the most common diseases in children. The aim of the study was to assess their frequency and antibiotic treatment in Poland. We retrospectively analyzed 91 randomly-selected children aged 0-17 years receiving care from birth in a large primary healthcare establishment in the city of Wroclaw in Poland. Respiratory tract infections were responsible for 25-40 % of all primary healthcare visits. The median of visits due to upper respiratory tract infections was 1.8 per year in all children and 2.0 per year in children 0-3 years old. Antibiotics were overused; the majority (57.4 %) of the respiratory infections were treated with antibiotics: acute tonsillitis in 90.7 %, bronchitis in 67.5 %, otitis media in 65.9 %, pneumonia in 60.9 %, non-specific upper respiratory tract infections in 25.8 %, laryngitis in 22.2 %, and sinusitis in 12.5 %. The higher the number of antibiotic therapies, the higher the total number of visits including visits due to respiratory tract infections. In conclusion, implementation of careful and responsible management of a rational use of antibiotics is urgently needed since a reduction in their use may lead to a decrease in the number of visits due to upper respiratory tract infections and a total number of primary care visits.

High antibiotic prescription rates in hospitalized children with human metapneumovirus infection in comparison to RSV infection emphasize the value of point-of-care diagnostics

“…Clinical and laboratory data of 2464 patients with a positive m-RT-PCR-ELISA result were collected additionally. To our knowledge, this is one of the largest evaluated cohorts of hospitalized children with acute respiratory tract infection [18][19][20][21][22]. The material collection was done per nasal swab or nasopharyngeal aspirate (NPA).…”

Serum β2-microglobulin may be a viral biomarker by analyzing children with upper respiratory tract infections and exanthem subitum: a retrospective study

“…Bacterial URTI requires antibiotic treatment. However, the overuse of antibiotics in children with acute upper respiratory tract infection is serious ( Cheng et al, 2019 ; Kuchar et al, 2015 ; Trinh et al, 2020 ).…”

Vitamin D and upper respiratory tract infections in young active males exposed to cold environments

“…Numerous researchers have suggested that both exercise (i.e., physical work) and cold (e.g., air temperature below 12 o C) may be potentially immunosuppressive, and in combination may contribute to meaningful reductions in immunity and increased risk of respiratory infection, especially for people working in some occupations (e.g., construction, fishing, food processing) [2,6,7,8,9]. In line with this, it has been shown that people working in cold environments suffer upper respiratory tract infections more frequently (URTI; including the common cold, pharyngitis, epiglottitis and laryngotracheitis) than the general population [10,11], for which respiratory tract infections are the most frequent cause of illness [12,13]. Since URTI is highly prevelant, it is important to find markers linked -directly or indirectly -to these infections with the aim of performing future interventions to reduce the prevelance and/or duration of illness.…”