How this fits in

Current guidelines emphasise the importance of symptomatic management with analgesics in children with acute otitis media (AOM). In daily practice, GPs frequently fail to give parents explicit recommendations. A tailored educational intervention, aiming to improve pain management, led to increased use of analgesics, particularly ibuprofen, but did not improve ear pain scores in children with AOM and was associated with an increase in GP reconsultations with subsequent antibiotic prescribing for AOM-related complaints. Considering this absence of a benefit to symptoms, GPs are advised to carefully weigh the benefits of using ibuprofen for this indication against its potential harms.