Mothers’ knowledge, attitude, and practice on antibiotic use for upper respiratory tract infections in children; an experience from Iran

Background and Objective: Although most upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) are caused by viruses, antibiotics are used for most children with URTIs symptoms in practice. Therefore this study aimed to assess knowledge, attitude and practice as one of the leading factors of using antibiotics in URTIs among mothers with at least one 6 month-6 year child. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2020. The study population consisted of 406 mothers with children aged 6 months to 6 years who had referred to selected comprehensive health centers in Yazd to vaccinate one of their children. Participants were selected through multi-stage sampling. The data was collected using a validated questionnaire with five parts including demographic, knowledge, attitude, and practice questions related to URTIs and antibiotic use in the last three months. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics V22.0 software. Results: A total of 406 mothers participated in the study. Nearly two-third of these participants benefit from a good level of knowledge. Meanwhile, most of them had moderate attitudes (83.7%) and performance levels (67.7%). Most of the 243 (84.5%) mothers reported that they didn’t have any arbitrary use of antibiotics for their children’s URTIs during the past three months. In addition, 65.3% stated that they never give antibiotics to their child without a doctor’s prescription Conclusions: Although educational interventions to improve the level of knowledge, attitude, and practice in the community especially among parents are necessary, performing more KAP studies on physicians regarding the administration of antibiotics in URTIs as well as provision of valid and indigenous guidelines for the optimal administration of antibiotics may be helpful.