Caretaker behavior regarding the use of antibiotics for children under five years old at the outpatient department, Wangwiset Hospital, Trang Province

Abstract

A cross-sectional, descriptive research, aiming at behavior, knowledge and attitude regarding the use of antibiotics among caretakers of children under five years of age at Wangwiset Hospital, Trang Province’s outpatient department. A questionnaire was developed for the study, with reliability at 0.7. Data collection started in August 2003, with 410 caretakers volunteered to participate in the study. SPSS statistical software package was employed to perform Pearson Correlation Co-efficient, p value at 0.05. The study found the demographic characteristics of the volunteers as follow: 20-39 years old (84.63%), gender female 100.0 (%), being married (89.9%), with primary education to high school (76.53%), income between 3,001 to 6,000 baht per month (36.1%), with three to five members of the family, and with relationship as parents and children. All of the caretakers in this study have one child under their care. The majority of these caretakers (54.6%) appeared to have moderate level of knowledge regarding anti-microbial use, including reading through the label, shaking the bottle, use only room temperature boiled water to mix the medication, filling the water up to the line marked on the bottle, taking pre-meal medication 30 minutes before the meal, taking post-meal medicine as soon as possible when forget to take such medication, appropriate drug storage, appropriate spoon to measure drub, stop giving medication only when it is finished, and administer proper dosage and frequency every time. The study also found that volunteers who were married, between 20-39 years old, and with higher level of education primary school are more likely to have better toward correct utilization of anti-microbial. Overall, the study found that the volunteers are either good or very good attitude. Income and occupation appeared to be correlated with attitude (government employee and bachelor degree or higher). The majority of the volunteers (88.3%) have positive attitude toward the use of the spoons provided by the hospital for giving medication, and 97.8% of the volunteers reported using them at all times. In addition, caretakers in this study reported their behavior at good and very good levels. The study confirms that attitude is correlated with behavior of caretaker on the utilization of antibiotics.