Table 3.
Characteristics of parent-reported acute otitis media symptom episodes.
| Characteristics | Study period | |
| 2013 | 2015 | |
| Episodes with otalgia, n/N (%) | 26/29 (90) | 17/18 (94) |
| Episodes with otorrhea, n/N (%) | 11/29 (38) | 6/18 (33) |
| Number of days with fever, median (range) | 3.0 (1-11) | 2.0 (1-5) |
| Episodes for which parents stayed home, n/N (%) | 6/15 (40) | 9/18 (50) |
| Episodes when parents worried regularly to a lot, n/N (%) | 7/15 (47) | 9/18 (50) |
| Episodes for which antibiotics were prescribed, n/N (%) | 5/15 (33) | 6/18 (33) |
| General practitioner visits, n/N (%) | 9/15 (60) | 8/18 (44) |
| Highest AOM-SOSa, mean (SD) | 8.6 (3.0) | 9.9 (3.4) |
aAOM-SOS: acute otitis media severity score. Highest possible AOM-SOS is 14 for each day. This score consists of 7 discrete items: tugging of ears, crying, irritability, difficulty in sleeping, diminished activity, diminished appetite, and fever. Parents were asked to rate these symptoms daily during 7 days following symptom onset in comparison with the child’s usual state, as “none,” “a little,” or “a lot,” with corresponding scores of 0, 1, and 2. Higher scores indicated more severe symptoms. For this study the AOM-SOS scale was translated into Dutch [10].