Antibiotics for children: What do you know about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance?

Preschool children are at risk of receiving unnecessary antibiotics because many childhood infections would have got better without antibiotics. Taking antibiotics when you don’t need then can cause bacteria to change and become “resistant”, meaning these bacteria can no longer be killed by certain antibiotics. This is called antibiotic resistance.

Public antibiotic awareness campaigns in the UK have not been as effective to reduce antibiotic use in young children. Recent research however has shown that parents want future health campaign messages to have a personal message for them and in a format that they will engage with.

Our research team wants to work together with parents/carers to test a novel way of informing parents about antibiotic use in children with respiratory tract infections (chest, ear or throat infection).

Finding out what parents or carers think will identify new ways to help boost awareness and understanding of antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance for parents and their families and will help health professionals design future antibiotic awareness campaigns aimed at parents of young children.

We are inviting any parent or carer of children to participate. We would like to carry out a focus group interview with you and other parents. The group interview will be arranged at a suitable time for most parents, will last between 90-120 minutes and will take place in Oxford.

Using evidence-based infographics to increase parents’ understanding about antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance: a proof-of-concept study (VICAR Study)
Version 1.0 , 27 March 2019
CUREC reference number: R62414/RE00