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Background: Most estimates of the incidence of acute otitis media (AOM) are based on general practitioner (GP) or pediatrician diagnoses. It is likely that these figures underestimate the community incidence of AOM since parents do not visit their doctor every time their child suffers from acute ear symptoms. The impact of these symptom episodes may be substantial since they affect the child's quality of life and parents' productivity., Methods: To determine AOM symptoms in the community, we measured parent-reported AOM symptoms daily for 12 consecutive months in 1,260 children participating in a prospective birth cohort in the Netherlands. The mean age of these children was at study enrollment 0.9 months (standard deviation 0.6). A parent-reported AOM symptom episode was defined as fever (temperature 38˚C or above) plus at least one of the following symptoms: ear pain and ear discharge. These febrile AOM symptom episodes were linked to GP-consultations and diagnoses in the GP electronic health records., Results: With an estimated 624 parent-reported symptom episodes per 1,000 child-years (95% CI: 577 to 674) incidence of febrile AOM symptoms during the child's first year is high. The GP was consulted in half of these symptom episodes and AOM was diagnosed in 49% of these consultations., Conclusions and Relevance: The incidence of febrile AOM symptoms in the first year of life is high in Dutch children and leads to a GP-consultation in only half of the cases. This suggests that AOM symptomatology in the community is underestimated when focusing on GP-diagnosed AOM episodes alone, since a considerable proportion of febrile AOM symptom episodes are treated symptomatically by parents at home and do not come to the attention of the GP. Having data on community AOM symptomatology available for each country is important when the potential impact of preventive and therapeutic interventions for AOM are studied.

Antimicrobial use in farm animals might contribute to the development of antimicrobial resistance in humans and animals, and there is an urgent need to reduce antimicrobial use in farm animals. Veterinarians are typically responsible for prescribing and overseeing antimicrobial use in animals. A thorough understanding of veterinarians' current prescribing practices and their reasons to prescribe antimicrobials might offer leads for interventions to reduce antimicrobial use in farm animals. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of factors that influence prescribing behaviour of farm animal veterinarians. Semi-structured interviews with eleven farm animal veterinarians were conducted, which were taped, transcribed and iteratively analysed. This preliminary analysis was further discussed and refined in an expert meeting. A final conceptual model was derived from the analysis and sent to all the respondents for validation. Many conflicting interests are identifiable when it comes to antimicrobial prescribing by farm animal veterinarians. Belief in the professional obligation to alleviate animal suffering, financial dependency on clients, risk avoidance, shortcomings in advisory skills, financial barriers for structural veterinary herd health advisory services, lack of farmers' compliance to veterinary recommendations, public health interests, personal beliefs regarding the veterinary contribution to antimicrobial resistance and major economic powers are all influential determinants in antimicrobial prescribing behaviour of farm animal veterinarians. Interventions to change prescribing behaviour of farm animal veterinarians could address attitudes and advisory skills of veterinarians, as well as provide tools to deal with (perceived) pressure from farmers and advisors to prescribe antimicrobials. Additional (policy) measures could probably support farm animal veterinarians in acting as a more independent animal health consultant., (© 2014 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.)