engleski

Automedication with antipyretics in children with upper respiratory tract infections

Fever is one of the leading symptoms in pediatric primary care. Automedication is unfortunately very common, leading to many adverse reactions and misuse of certain drugs. In the course of our study we tried to evaluate the frequency of automedication in children with upper respiratory tract infections. According to our study the most commonly used antipyretic was paracetamol Some recent studies show that paracetamol is not completly harmless and that frequent use of paracetamol might be connected with greater risk of asthma, allergic rhinitis and eczema. We conducted a prospective, observational study in three pediatric clinics in Zagreb. Inclusion criteria were presence of symptoms and signs of acute respiratory infections associated with fever over 38 C for more than two days. Antipyretics were given to more that one third of our subjects and predominately it was paracetamol. Epidemiological data had shown that children attending day-care centers were given antipyretics less often than the other and that children whose siblings or a family member had recent infection were given antipyretic more often. Clinical data showed that most symptoms of the disease were less expressed in children given antipyretic, most probably because of the antiinflammatory effect. Thus our study raises the question do benefits of paracetamol outweight the risk?

antipyretics; upper respiratory tract infections

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