Saudi Parents' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Regarding Antibiotic use for Upper Respiratory Tract Infections in Children

ABSTRACT

A lot of experiments have been carried out in Saudi Arabia concerning the misuse of antibiotics and buying themwithout being prescribed by a doctor. However, despite all these studies, a few or none of them have appraisedthe parental awareness, practices and attitude toward the use of antibiotics in the treatment of URTIs in theirchildren. As such, the objective of this experiment was to document and analyze the parental levels of knowledge,attitudes, and practices (KAP) regarding the use for upper respiratory tract infections in children. This is a crosssectional study that was conducted across 8 cities Riyadh, Jeddah, Taif, Makkah, Dammam, Al Ahsa, Albahaand Asir Saudi Arabia from 01/09/2019 to 26/09/2019, according to which a total of 714 parents took part in thestudy. Convenience sampling was the method that was used to select the participants of the experiment. Thefindings of the current research were found to be the same as those of the studies that were conducted before inPalestine. The researcher found out that the parents in Saudi Arabia lack adequate knowledge regarding the useof antibiotics in the treatment of URTIs and this led to their wrong practices and attitudes toward the same.Despite all these, the study established a relationship of trust between the subjects and the doctors, meaning thatthere is a trust in the information and recommendations that the doctors give them concerning the medications.