Parents’ Expectations to Receive Antibiotic Prescriptions for Children

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate whether parents’ level of expectations would change after manipulating their perceived barriers to visiting doctors without any expectations for antibiotic prescriptions and their perceived benefits of using antibiotics. A prospective experimental study was conducted using a data-collection instrument to manipulate perceived barriers and perceived benefits using four scenarios. Scenarios were developed with the help of pediatricians and by conducting an elicitation survey among parents. Each subject viewed four scenarios. Parents’ expectations to receive an antibiotic prescription associated with each scenario were measured on a scale of 0 (no expectation) to 100 (high expectation); a 100 mm visual-analog scale was used. Data were collected at public places (Houston, Texas, USA) from subjects who had at least one child (age ≤ 5 years) during the study. Descriptive and repeated measures mixed method analyses were performed using SAS v. 9.3 with a .05 significance level. Three hundred surveys were analyzed. The mean age of the sample was 30.3 ± 7 years. The mean general expectation score (before reading any scenario) to receive an antibiotic prescription for children was 53.6 ± 25.7. The repeated measure mixed methods analysis indicated that there was a 12-point reduction (p < .0001) in the expectation score after removing perceived barriers from the situational scenarios, a 16-point decrease (p < .0001) in expectation score was observed after removing perceived benefits, and an 18-point decrease (p < .0001) in expectation score was observed after removing both perceived barriers and perceived benefits.