title: Physician consultation and antibiotic prescription in Swedish infants: population-based comparison of group daycare and home care.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Daycare infants have more infectious episodes, see a physician more often, and are prescribed antibiotics more often than home care infants.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To compare physician consultations and antibiotic prescription in daycare children and home care children taking number of symptom days, sociodemographic factors, concern about infectious illness and antibiotic knowledge into account.
  
  
  METHODS
  For a cohort of Swedish 18-month-old children all infectious symptoms, physician consultation and antibiotic prescriptions were registered during 1 month.
  
  
  RESULTS
  561 infants with daycare outside the home and 278 with daycare at home were included. Of the daycare infants, 23.2% saw a physician and 11.4% were prescribed antibiotics, as compared with 10.8% physician consultations and 5.0% antibiotic prescription for the home care infants. For daycare infants the crude odds ratio for physician consultation were 2.49 (1.63-3.82) and for antibiotic prescription 2.43 (1.34-4.41) compared with home care infants. However, these differences were no longer statistically significant when background data, concern about infectious illness and reported symptoms were taken into account.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  When background data, concern about infectious illness and reported infectious symptoms were taken into account daycare infants saw a physician and was prescribed antibiotics in the same way as home care infants.
authors.affiliation: Unit of R&D, Kronoberg County Council, Växjö, Sweden. katarina.hedin@ltkronoberg.se
authors.forename: Katarina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hedin
authors.forename: Malin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Andre
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Håkansson
authors.forename: Sigvard
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mölstad
authors.forename: Nils
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rodhe
authors.forename: Christer
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Petersson
mesh_terms: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D002656:Child Day Care Centers; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004363:Drug Utilization; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007224:Infant Care; D016015:Logistic Models; D009819:Office Visits / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010290:Parents; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012424:Rural Population; D013548:Sweden; D014505:Urban Population
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents