ATLANTA — Child care providers surveyed in 2004 were significantly less likely to exclude a sick child who had not received antibiotics, compared with child care providers surveyed in 2001, Shelly Feaver reported in a poster presented at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Of 1,409 Minnesota child care center teachers surveyed in 2004 and 421 surveyed in 2001, the 2004 teachers were significantly less likely to exclude a child with a fever, a runny nose without mucus, or a chest cold who had not received antibiotics. In addition, the teachers surveyed in 2004 were significantly more likely than those surveyed in 2001 to believe that physicians should not prescribe antibiotics for children with fevers, middle ear infections, runny noses with green or yellow mucus, conjunctivitis with pus, and conjunctivitis with watery discharge.
Ms. Feaver and her colleagues at the Minnesota Department of Health in St. Paul developed an educational intervention program based on the results of the 2001 surveys. The program included a child care provider curriculum with education slides, and viral excuse pads. The Minnesota Department of Human Services Child Care Licensing Division approved the curriculum for continuing education credit for licensed child care providers prior to the second survey in 2004, but there were no significant differences in the 2004 survey responses between teachers who reported completing the curriculum and those who had not completed the curriculum.
In addition, messages about judicious antibiotic use were distributed to child care health consultants and were posted on the Web site of the Minnesota Antibiotic Research Collaborative during the study period.