Article ID: nt.2023-0028
Allaying parents’ concerns about their children’s medication use is one of the most important issues for pharmacy pharmacists；but few reports currently available have focused on children’s birth order. In this study, we surveyed parents of pediatric patients who visited 13 of our insurance pharmacies in Tokyo between December 2021 and January 2022 about issues that cause anxiety when their infants take pediatric medications. Among the 269 valid responses studied. The parental response rate for infants (under 1 year old) was highest for “side effects”, “allergies”, and “strength of medicine” in the firstborn group with the same value, followed by “side effects”, “something to mix medicine”, and “nothing” in the second and later children group. The parental response rates for toddlers (aged 1 to 6 years) were “something to mix medicine”, “side effects”, and “strength of medicine” for the firstborn group, and “nothing”, “taste and smell”, and “something to mix medicine” for the second and later children group, in that order. Therefore, it is suggested that parents’ concerns about their children’s medication differed according to the children’s birth order, and it is possible that parents’ parenting experience may have an influence on this trend.
