Objective: Evaluate parents or legal guardians' knowledge and beliefs, behaviors, and adherence regarding antibiotic use for upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) in their children who are younger than 6 years.
Design: A cross-sectional study from September 2016 to February 2017.
Setting: Emergency department with a pediatric unit.
Participants: One hundred and one parents or legal guardians who visited one of the selected emergency departments during the study period.
Intervention: Administration of a validated questionnaire to assess knowledge and beliefs, behaviors, and adherence regarding antibiotic use for URTI.
Main outcome measures: Knowledge and beliefs, behaviors, and adherence regarding antibiotic use for URTI.
Results: Items with the least desired scores were seen in the "knowledge and beliefs" domain. Higher number of antibiotics used for URTI during the last year (P < 0.01) and lower education level (P = 0.03) were associated with least desired knowledge and beliefs scores. The "behaviors" domain contained the items with the best scores: higher education level (P = 0.05), fewer antibiotics used for URTI during the last year (P = 0.05), and older age (P = 0.02) were the only variables associated with better behaviors. For the "adherence" domain, lower education level (P < 0.01) was associated with poor indicators of adherence. The Cronbach alpha for the "knowledge and beliefs" items was 0.875, the "behaviors" items 0.569, and the "adherence" items 0.798.
Conclusion: Findings of our study support the need for proper antibiotic education among parents, especially in those with an increased risk of antibiotic misuse and overuse. Pharmacists and physicians need to establish a dialogue with parents or legal guardians to discuss how antibiotics work, what types of infection they treat, and how to prevent antibiotic resistance. Sociodemographic variables can be used to identify at-risk groups and to develop successful interventions.
Published by Elsevier Inc.