Too many children getting antibiotics for asthma

while the guidelines recommend antibiotics for asthma, almost a million children with respiratory condition is prescribed drugs each year at the United States, a new study concludes.

"We are trying to reduce unnecessary antibiotics prescriptions, and suggests that as pediatricians, we are prescribing them too often, said researcher principal Dr. Ian M. Paul, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, Hershey's State.".

Why doctors prescribe antibiotics for asthma is not clear, Paul said. One of the reasons could be that physicians in treatment of severe asthma attack "feel the need to cover all their bases in also prescribing antibiotics", he suggested.

Sometimes parents can ask doctors to give their child antibiotics, but it does not appear to be a big factor, Paul noted. "There are probably some in clinical practice, but I do not think that happens all that often - certainly not in one in every six visits for asthma," he said.

"The encouraging conclusion was, when asthma education delivered during the visit, antibiotics were less likely to be prescribed", he added. When asthma education was not part of the visit, 19% of the time antibiotics were prescribed, compared to 11% when the teaching of asthma has been given.

"This suggests that we can raise families and patients and explain the causes of asthma and, hopefully, reduce prescribe them unnecessary antibiotic", said Paul.

The dangers of over-prescribing antibiotics are that it encourages the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and there are side effects to drugs themselves, Paul said.

The report was published in the online edition may 23 of Pediatrics.

The study, the team used Paul data from the National ambulatory medical and hospital care surveys Ambulatory Medical Care survey to see the rate of antibiotics prescribed for children between 1998 and 2007.

During this period, there were a few 60.4 million visits of medical care for children with asthma for which no prescription of antibiotics was justified. However, antibiotics were prescribed 16 percent of the time, researchers have discovered.

Primary care physicians were more likely to prescribe antibiotics, while that emergency physicians are less likely to prescribe them, said Paul.

Other factors that are linked to increased antibiotic prescription included corticosteroids and treated in the winter, the researchers noted.

However, when visits to primary care doctors included asthma, education, the antibiotic prescription rate has declined, Paul said.

In a second study in the same journal, Belgian researchers, led by Dr. Kris De Boeck, the Department of pediatric pulmonology and infectious diseases at University Hospital of Leuven, are like overprescription of antibiotics for asthmatic children.

These researchers found children treated with asthma drugs were 1.9 times more likely to also obtain a prescription for antibiotics, compared to children not treated with drugs against asthma.

In fact, 35.6% of children who have been prescribed drugs against asthma was also prescribed antibiotics, the researchers found.

"This finding highlights the need for education opportunities inform clinicians that this co-prescription should be limited," the authors concluded.

Commenting on the two studies, Dr. Paul Krogstad, Professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of California, Los Angeles and co-author of an editorial in the magazine that accompanies it, said that "these articles indicate that antibiotics and anti-asthmatic were very commonly prescribed two tandem here and Belgiquequi is in conflict with national and international recommendations that emphasize that the" antibiotics have no systematic use in the care of asthmatics. ?

Antibiotic overuse confuses the patient and the family, said Krogstad. "They do not understand the true nature of asthma as an inflammatory, not an infectious disease,"he explained.""

In addition, over-prescribing antibiotics leads to personal risk and society, said Krogstad.

"Personal risks include allergic reactions, side effects, drug interactions and costs." Societal costs include the costs associated with the medication and the choice of drug-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic overuse is reduced, but this remains an area where improvement is badly needed, "he says.