Background: The common cold is a mild upper respiratory viral disease. Symptoms associated with the common cold are sneezing, coughing, and low-grade fever. Although the common cold is a viral illness, antibiotics are often prescribed erroneously for the management of the common cold. Antibiotics should only be prescribed and administrated when there is a bacterial infection. Overuse of antibiotics is a contributing factor to antibiotic resistance.
Aim: To assess the overuse of antibiotics in the management of the common cold by reviewing the previous studies conducted on this subject.
Methods: The medical literature was explored in PubMed, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect during the period from 2015 to 2022. The included search terms were “Common cold, treatment, antibiotics, overuse, misuse, rate.” The inclusion criteria included original English articles that reported the use of antibiotics for the common cold.
Results: A total of 989 articles were obtained, but only six articles were eligible for the inclusion criteria. The total number of participants was 3989, and the six studies were from five different countries. The populations included in the studies were children, healthcare providers, and university students.
Conclusion: There is an overuse of antibiotics for the common cold, and this is due to many factors; some are related to the patients and others are related to physicians. Increasing awareness and knowledge of patients and physicians can reduce the overuse of antibiotics.
Key words: Common cold, RTI, Antibiotics, Overuse.
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