Antibiotics for children: are you interested in knowing how many antibiotics your child has had in the past year?

Are you a parent or carer of preschool children? Has your preschool child experienced a recent respiratory tract infection (chest, ear, or throat infection)?

If the answer is yes, we're inviting you to join our research study to help us design an automated computer screen prompt and personalised consultation print-out, which will calculate a child’s antibiotic history for use during appointments at the GP.

In the NHS, one in four GP appointments are for children. Many of these appointments are for “respiratory tract infections” (RTIs) - the typical coughs, sore throats, or earaches which children get. We know that most of these illnesses will go away in time and that antibiotics have little or no benefit. Yet, at least 1 in 3 children are prescribed an unnecessary course of antibiotics for these illnesses.

Recent research from over 250,000 UK children has also found that children who had taken two or more antibiotic courses for these RTIs in the last year had around a 30% greater chance of not responding to treatment for future RTIs compared to children who had not taken any antibiotics. This ‘antibiotic history’ is currently not routinely reviewed during GP appointments.

Join OUR STUDY

We are inviting any parent or carer of preschool children (aged between 6 months and 5 years old) to participate in a workshop with 3-7 other parents to co-design an automated computer screen prompt and personalised consultation print-out, which will calculate a child’s antibiotic history for use during appointments at the GP. This study is ongoing until April 2022. 

We would value parents input in any of the following:

• Helping us design computer screen prompt and print-out to ensure that it is acceptable for parents and healthcare professionals to use in the GP surgery.
• Take part in at least 1 group workshop
• Developing ways of telling people about the research
• Advising us on how best to share our findings