PhD ceremony Ms. J. de Jong: Antibiotics use in children. Pharmacoepidemiological, practical, social and environmental perspectives in the Netherlands
| When: | Fr 31-05-2013 at 16:15 |
PhD ceremony: Ms. J. de Jong, 16.15 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen
Dissertation: Antibiotics use in children. Pharmacoepidemiological, practical, social and environmental perspectives in the Netherlands
Promotor(s): prof. L.T.W. de Jong-van den Berg
Faculty: Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Josta de Jong studied the use of antibiotics by (young) children in the Netherlands. She concludes: improved adherence to guidelines, reduced not-registered antibiotics in young children, increased attention to and education of parents and decreased use of antibiotics in animal husbandry could contribute to decreasing of antibiotic resistance.
Antibiotics are medicines that are commonly used, especially in children. Unfortunately the use of antibiotics is often inappropriate and unnecessary. This could contribute to antibiotic resistance of bacteria, which is a great concern nowadays. Most of the studies De Jong performed using IADB.nl, a database with pharmacy data.
Antibiotics were more often prescribed than recommended and the types of antibiotics prescribed also did not follow guideline recommendations. Focusing on children of 0 to 4 years old, De Jong found that antibiotic use was the highest among children under 1 year of age. In this study the choice of antibiotics was also not according to the guidelines. Moreover, antibiotics were sometimes prescribed for an age that was outside the registered indication.
De Jong developed questionnaires and at the pharmacy we asked parents about the practices and problems they encountered while giving an antibiotic course to their child. Parents reported adverse effects, administration problems and both in 23%, 21% and 8% of the cases, respectively.
Also De Jong investigated two groups of children: those who use no antibiotics at all and those who use antibiotics more than average. She found that parents of children using antibiotics recurrently use more medication themselves than parents of children who don’t use antibiotics. This difference is not only visible in antibiotics but also in other types of drugs.