Ital J Pediatr
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Bronchiolitis guidelines suggest that neither bronchodilators nor corticosteroids, antiviral and antibacterial agents should be routinely used. Although recommendations, many clinicians persistently prescribe drugs for bronchiolitis. ⋯ We strongly confirm the large use of drugs in bronchiolitis management by hospital pediatricians. Main reason of this wrong practice appears to be the fact that pediatricians recognize bronchiolitis as a severe condition, with consequent anxiety in curing so acutely ill children without drugs, and that sometimes they feel forced to prescribe drugs because of personal reassurance or parental pressure. We also found that social "at risk" condition represents a main reason for hospitalization, not correlated to clinical severity of the disease neither to drug prescription. Eventually, we suggest a "step-by-step" strategy to rich a more evidence based approach to bronchiolitis therapy, by adopting specific and shared resident guidelines.
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Knowledge and awareness about childhood autism is low among health care workers and the general populace in Nigeria. Poor knowledge about childhood autism among final year medical, nursing and psychology students who would form tomorrow's child health care professionals can compromise early recognition and interventions that are known to improve prognosis in childhood autism. Educational factors that could be influencing knowledge about childhood autism among these future health care professionals are unknown. This study assessed knowledge about childhood autism among final year undergraduate medical, nursing and psychology students in south-eastern Nigeria and determined the factors that could be influencing such knowledge. ⋯ Peculiar situation in this environment as signified by inadequate human resources needed in the area of clinical psychology training often times necessitates employing first degree graduates in psychology into clinical positions. This calls for additional exposure of the undergraduate psychology students to training curriculum aimed at improving their early recognition of symptoms of autism spectrum disorders in this environment.