Kamal AF, Abdelaziz EA, Fahim VF, Saad MH, Badr M. Drug prescribing pattern in upper respiratory tract infections among the pediatric population attending outpatient clinics in pediatric hospitals. World J Clin Pediatr 2025; 14(2): 100614 [DOI: 10.5409/wjcp.v14.i2.100614]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Veronia F Fahim, PhD, Department of Medical Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Kasralainy, Cairo 02, Al Qāhirah, Egypt. veronia.fawzy@kasralainy.edu.eg
Research Domain of This Article
Infectious Diseases
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Pediatr. Jun 9, 2025; 14(2): 100614 Published online Jun 9, 2025. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v14.i2.100614
Drug prescribing pattern in upper respiratory tract infections among the pediatric population attending outpatient clinics in pediatric hospitals
Amir F Kamal, Eman A Abdelaziz, Veronia F Fahim, Mohamed H Saad, Mai Badr
Amir F Kamal, Eman A Abdelaziz, Mohamed H Saad, Mai Badr, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo 02, Al Qāhirah, Egypt
Veronia F Fahim, Department of Medical Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo 02, Al Qāhirah, Egypt
Author contributions: Kamal AF, Abdelaziz EA, and Badr M were responsible for conceiving the study; Saad MH was responsible for the methodology; Kamal AF, Abdelaziz EA, Saad MH, and Badr M were responsible for the data collection; Kamal AF, Fahim VF, Saad MH, and Badr M were responsible for writing and editing the manuscript; Abdelaziz EA was responsible for supervising the study; All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University Institutional Review Board on August 15, 2018.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardians, provided informed written consent before enrollment in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Veronia F Fahim, PhD, Department of Medical Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Kasralainy, Cairo 02, Al Qāhirah, Egypt. veronia.fawzy@kasralainy.edu.eg
Received: August 21, 2024 Revised: December 2, 2024 Accepted: December 23, 2024 Published online: June 9, 2025 Processing time: 208 Days and 23.1 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) are one of the most frequent causes of childhood school leave and morbidity.
AIM
To study the present trend of medications’ prescribing pattern utilized in URTIs among the pediatric population attending outpatient clinics in pediatric hospitals.
METHODS
This analytical observational cross-sectional research was conducted in 200 children aged 1–10 years with URTIs attending the pediatric outpatient clinics in pediatric hospitals, one of which is an educational hospital, from July 2018 to August 2020.
RESULTS
Most of the prescriptions in our study included antibiotics (116/58%). The most commonly prescribed antibiotic family was ampicillin/sulbactam or amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (53/26.5%), followed by first-generation cephalosporin (25/12.5%) and third-generation cephalosporin (20/10%). Macrolides and second-generation cephalosporins were prescribed less frequently, in 16 (8%) and 2 (1%) patients, respectively. Most of our study population (155/77.5%) was satisfied with their prescriptions, whereas the rest of the study population (45/22.5%) was unsatisfied.
CONCLUSION
Overprescription of antibiotics is a significant issue among clinicians in pediatric outpatient clinics. Stewardship of drugs, particularly antibiotics, is a must to prevent the development of drug resistance. Most cases of URTIs were treated in accordance with the existing national treatment guidelines.
Core Tip: Overprescription of antibiotics is a significant issue among clinicians in pediatric outpatient clinics. Pediatric clinicians should aim to reduce antibiotic use by addressing three fundamental questions for each patient with a suspected infection: (1) Do antibiotics need to be prescribed; (2) What is the appropriate dose thereof; and (3) What is the optimal duration of treatment. Stewardship of drugs, particularly antibiotics is a must, to prevent the development of drug resistance.
