Simple education measures can improve low-income parents’ knowledge of proper antibiotic use, a new study shows.

Experts hope that a better-informed public will help stem the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, where bacteria gradually become immune to the medications that once controlled them. Misuse of antibiotics - taking them for colds, the flu or other viral illnesses, for example - has helped to fuel the rise in antibiotic resistance in recent years.

While doctors are responsible for prescribing antibiotics, surveys have found that many feel pressured by their patients, or patients’ parents, to give them an antibiotic when it’s not warranted.

Antibiotics are only effective against bacteria, so they are powerless against viruses like the common cold; coughs and bronchitis are also most often caused by a virus, but research shows that parents often believe these conditions must be treated with an antibiotic.

In the new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers tested whether simple education measures - pamphlets mailed to families and offered at pediatricians’ offices and pharmacies - could improve parents’ antibiotic know-how.

The researchers, led by Dr. Susan S. Huang of Harvard Medical School, tested the program in eight Massachusetts communities and then compared them with eight other communities in the state. Parents in all 16 communities were surveyed about their antibiotic knowledge at the beginning of the study and again 3 years later.

In general, Huang’s team found, parents in all of the communities became more savvy about proper antibiotic use over time - probably in part because of growing media attention to the problem of antibiotic resistance, the researchers speculate.

However, when they looked at different groups of parents, the researchers found that the education program did help those on Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income Americans. These parents improved their knowledge of proper antibiotic use, whereas there was no change among Medicaid recipients in the comparison communities.

The “direct-to-consumer” mailings, according to Huang’s team, might have been more effective among Medicaid families because they’re less likely than more affluent parents to learn about antibiotic use through other sources, like news reports.

“Even in the context on ongoing public education,” the researchers conclude, “this trial supports targeted intervention for families of Medicaid-insured children, who may not receive messages distributed through other channels.”

SOURCE: Pediatrics, April 2007.