Abstract
Background: Several factors are evidently associated with the overuse of antibiotics both at the doctor`s level and the parents of children level.

Objectives: To assess the level of knowledge and practice of parents about antibiotics use for upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) in their children as well as to determine the contributing factors for inappropriate use.

Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in two PHC centres in National Guard Health Affairs, Riyadh, between 1 January 2012 and 29 February 2012. It included parents of children (age from birth to 12 years) presenting with URTI symptoms.

Results: The study included 352 parents of Saudi children. Most of the parents (71%) reported doctors as their source of antibiotic information. Only 1.4% of the participants identified correctly all antibiotics while 35.8% of them did not identify any antibiotic correctly. Factor analysis showed that the three common underlying factors responsible for antibiotics overuse were: parental self-prescribing tendency, parental tendency of asking for antibiotics from doctor and parental carefree attitude regarding over use and the three common underlying factors responsible for cautious approach to antibiotics use were: parental cautious nature, parental preference of advice over antibiotics and parental belief that URTI are mostly self-limiting.

Conclusions: Parents are self-prescribing because of their easy access of antibiotics without prescription and their indifferent attitude toward microbial resistance.

Key words: Antibiotics. Saudi Arabia, knowledge, URTI