According to a new study, the major reason pediatricians prescribe antibiotics to children who probably don't need them is pressure from parents, rather than concerns about malpractice or as an accurate treatment for a child's illness. School of Medicine researchers Assistant Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Howard Bauchner and Professors of Pediatrics Dr. Stephen Pelton and Dr. Jerome Klein found that 96 percent of doctors studied had received antibiotic requests from parents during the previous month. During the past decade unnecessary antibiotic use has emerged as a major public health problem - the indiscriminate use of antibiotics has contributed to the growing problem of drug resistance. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control announced a national campaign to reduce resistance by, among other things, eliminating the practice of prescribing antibiotics for illnesses that are likely to be viral. Unfortunately, he adds, pediatricians continue to prescribe antibiotics for viral infections, such as colds, against which such drugs are useless.
Antibiotics are only effective against bacterial infections.
Middle-ear infections, a common childhood malady that a growing number of pediatricians believe does not require antibiotic therapy, is a case in point. The team investigated how parents influence pediatricians' prescribing practices and strategies to reduce the use of unnecessary antibiotics. One in three pediatricians reported they had prescribed antibiotics they believed to be unnecessary, in order to appease parents.