Adherence to treatment guidelines for acute diarrhoea in children up to 12 years in Ujjain, India - a cross-sectional prescription analysis

Table 3 Distribution of patients' and practitioners' characteristics in the prescriptions of acute diarrhoea collected by 17 pharmacies and 5 major hospitals of Ujjain, India (n = 843)

Patient characteristics		Number	Percentage
Age	0 to < 1 year	221	26
	1 to < 5 years	323	38
	5 to ≤12 years	299	36
Sex	Male	481	57
	Female	362	43
Locality	Urban	289	34
	Rural	554	66
Patient setting	Outpatient	612	73
	In patient	231	27
Month of prescription	June	262	31
	July	516	61
	August	65	8
Diarrhoea Information
Duration of diarrhoea	Up to 7 days	819	97
	More than 7 days	24	3
Associated symptoms	Presence of fever	442	52
	Presence of pain in stomach	183	22
	Presence of vomiting	348	41
	Presence of blood in stools	89	11
Practitioner's characteristics
Prescriptions according to practitioner's qualifications	Paediatricians (Post-graduate degree or diploma)	571	68
	Allopathic graduates (MBBS)	101	12
	Others (alternate system of medicine and informal health-care providers)	171	20
Duration in practice	0 - 10 years	569	68
	More than 10 years	274	32
Practice setting	Free	170	20
	Charitable	141	17
	Private	532	63

ISSN: 1471-2334