Monitoring adherence to guidelines of antibiotic use in pediatric pneumonia: the MAREA study

Background Children are the most vulnerable population exposed to the use of antibiotics often incorrectly prescribed for the treatment of infections really due to viruses rather than to bacteria. We designed the MAREA study which consisted of two different studies: i) a surveillance study to monitor the safety/efficacy of the antibiotics for the treatment of pneumonia (CAP), pharyngotonsillitis and acute otitis media in children younger than 14 yrs old, living in Liguria, North-West Italy and ii) a pre−/post-interventional study to evaluate the appropriateness of antibiotic prescription for the treatment these infections. In this paper, we show only results of the appropriateness study about the antibiotic prescription for the treatment of pneumonia.