Assessing the Awareness among Parents of Antibiotic Therapy Delivered to their Children in Al-Ahsa

OBJECTIVES This study aims to estimate the awareness among parents about antibiotic therapy given to their children in Al-Ahsa community. METHODS Self-administrated questionnaire was distributed among parents of 800 students in a cross-sectional study. The target population of this study was parents' of children between the ages from 5-12 years. Simple random sampling was done among all Al-Ahsa primary schools and kindergartens (8 primary schools and 2 kindergartens were chosen) and the children were selected by systematic sampling. RESULTS Out of total responses, data for 525 (65.6%) parents were considered valid for analysis. Only 81 (15.4%) of the parents knew that the aim of using antibiotics is to treat bacterial infections. Majority of them (300, 57%) believed that antibiotics can treat all sources of infections (bacterial, viral, & fungal). However, majority of parents prefer to visit a doctor when their children get ill. Moreover, 271 (51.5%) of the sample heard about bacterial resistance. CONCLUSION Majority of parents were not aware of the aim of using antibiotics and bacterial resistance. However, we expected that the risk of developing antibiotic resistance in the children of Al-Ahsa community should be low because majority of parents are avoiding giving antibiotics and they prefer to visit a doctor when their child is sick. However, further studies needs to be carried out to confirm this finding.