[Acute otitis media is not treated according to recommendations. Survey of treatment patterns in emergency centers and community health centers].

Usual recommended treatment of acute otitis media (AOM) is antibiotics or expectancy. Different parts of Europe have varying therapy with Holland as an example of more restrictive use of antibiotics. The purpose with this study was to see differences in treatment length, choice of antibiotics, and differences in handling on daytime and emergency hours. 432 case records of children, aged up to ten years were retrospectively investigated. The result shows that antibiotics were prescribed to all except five patients. First choice of antibiotic (70 per cent) was penicillin V that also was more used at emergency hours than daytime at the health centre. Treatment time varied from five to ten days in contrast to national recommendations of five-day therapy. Registrars preferred five-day therapy and specialists seven days. We conclude that penicillin V is first choice of treatment in AOM, that treatment time varies from five to ten days without any underlying reasons and that expectancy was used only in very few cases.