the rate of antibiotic utilization in iranian under 5-year-old children with acute respiratory tract illness: a nationwide community-based study

background: to investigate the prevalence of antibiotic usage in children aged <5 years with acute respiratory tract illness (arti) in iran. materials and methods: data were collected from a national health survey conducted in 2010 (iran’s multiple indicator demographic and health survey). participants of this cross-sectional study were selected by multistage stratifi ed cluster-random sampling from 31 provinces of iran. parents of children with <5 years of age responded to questions about the occurrence of any cough during the previous 2 weeks, referral to private/governmental/other health care systems, and utilization of any oral/injection form of antibiotics. data were analyzed using spss software18. th e chi-square test was used to determine antibiotic consumption in various gender and residency groups and also a place of residence with the referral health care system. results: of the 9345 children under 5 years who participated in the study, 1506 cases (16.2%) had arti during 2 weeks prior to the interview, in whom 1143 (75.9%) were referred to urban or rural health care centers (43.4 vs. 30.4%; p < 0.001). antibiotics were utilized by 715 (62.6%) of aff ected children.injection formulations were used for 150 (13.1%) patients. th e frequency of receiving antibiotics was higher in urban than in rural inhabitants (66.0% vs. 57.7%; p < 0.05). conclusion: th e prevalence of total and injection antibiotics usage in children <5 years with arti is alarmingly high in iran. th erefore, interventions to reduce antibiotic use are urgently needed.