# Prevalence of antibiotic use for childhood diarrhoea in Uganda after an ORS scale-up intervention: a repeated cross-sectional study

## TL;DR

This study found that antibiotic use for childhood diarrhea in Uganda dropped significantly after a program to promote oral rehydration salts.

## Contribution

The study shows a significant decrease in antibiotic use for childhood diarrhea following an ORS scale-up intervention in Uganda.

## Key findings

- Antibiotic use decreased from 30.5% in 2014 to 20.0% in 2016.
- No significant socioeconomic associations with antibiotic use were found in either year.
- The ORS scale-up program may have contributed to the decline, but its exact role is unclear.

## Abstract

Diarrhoea kills 500,000 children every year despite availability of cheap and effective treatment. In addition, a large number are inappropriately treated with antibiotics, which do not benefit the patient but can contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance. We investigated whether the prevalence of antibiotic use among children under the age of five with diarrhoea in Uganda changed following a national intervention to increase the use of oral rehydration salts (ORS), and whether any socioeconomic characteristics were associated with antibiotic use.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among caregivers of children under the age of five and among private health care providers and drug sellers in Uganda in 2014. This was compared to a similar survey among private health care providers, and the national demographic and health survey in Uganda in 2016. Logistic regression was used to find associations between antibiotic use and socioeconomic characteristics, and chi-square test and independent sample t-test were used to find significant differences between groups.

The prevalence of antibiotic use among children under the age of five with diarrhoea in Uganda decreased from 30.5% in 2014 to 20.0% (p < 0.001) in 2016. No associations between socioeconomic characteristics and the use of antibiotics were significant in both 2014 and 2016.

The use of antibiotics in children with diarrhoeal disease decreased significantly in Uganda between 2014 and 2016. However, the extent of the contribution of the ORS scale-up programme to this decrease cannot be determined from this study.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-024-19613-4.