About half of children under age 3 whose parents suspected acute otitis media have the diagnosis; restless sleep, ear rubbing and fever are not predictive.

摘要

Acute otitis media (AOM) is one of the most common infectious diseases in young children affecting approximately 80% of children by the age of 2 years and accounts for more than 40% of paediatric office visits. Anothervery common illness in children which often accompanies otitis media is an upper respiratory tract infection (URI) occurring six to eight times a year making it difficult to distinguish the coexistence of an AOM. Signs and symptoms of a URI cause significant distress to parents leading parents to suspect a diagnosis of an AOM in their children often insisting on antibiotics. Current guidelines from the American Academy of Paediatrics recommend more judicial use of antibiotics to decrease antibiotic resistance. Therefore, if parents can recognise when AOM is not present based on the symptomatology, requests for antibiotics may decrease.