KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES OF PARENTS IN RESPECT OF ANTIBIOTIC USE IN CHILDREN

Background: Increasing resistance to antibiotic chemotherapy is becoming a great challenge for medicine in recent times. Un-prescribed intake of antibiotics is a major promoter to expansion of this problem. In Pakistan access to antimicrobials remains unsupervised and hence resulting in over use. The aim of this study is to determine knowledge of parents regarding use of antimicrobial therapy, problems associated with it, their source of information and their expectations from the Pediatricians for antibiotic prescriptions. Methods: This is a questionnaire based cross sectional study conducted at Nishtar Hospital Multan & Lahore General Hospital Lahore. Parents who consented, has children aged between 0 to 12 years, and were not directly related to medical profession were included in this study. Total number of participants interviewed were 618. Study was done in the period of 06 months from November 2018 to May 2019. Analysis was done using SPSS v23. Results: Most of the respondents were mothers. Majority of participants were having education up till level of Matriculation. 448 (72.49 %) responded that they enjoy a good access to healthcare. Commonest source for use of antibiotics was Doctors. 238 (38.51%) mentioned that antibiotics must be administered in any case of fever, 347 (56.1%) thought that antibiotics use to speed up recovery and 486 (78.6%) knew that antimicrobials have their own after effect. The commonest reason to administer an un-prescribed antimicrobial agent was that the same antibiotic was being prescribed by a physician earlier followed by a pharmacist or by a family member recommending use of antibiotic. Majority of the respondents denied Lack of resources as a reason for self-administration of antibiotics. Conclusion: There is a need to increase awareness regarding sensible use of antibiotics and to keep a close check on un-prescribed dispensing of antibiotics