Outpatient Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotic resistance is an important public health concern [1]. Antibiotics are one of the most commonly prescribed drug classes worldwide, with considerable variation in outpatient antibiotic use between countries [2]. Viral respiratory tract infections drive antibiotic overpre-scribing in the out...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.688.8787 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2683568/pdf/pmed.1000080.pdf |
| Summary: | Antibiotic resistance is an important public health concern [1]. Antibiotics are one of the most commonly prescribed drug classes worldwide, with considerable variation in outpatient antibiotic use between countries [2]. Viral respiratory tract infections drive antibiotic overpre-scribing in the outpatient setting, and this overprescribing is also influenced by patient demand and expectations [3,4]. There has been great interest in the public health community in avoiding unnecessary prescriptions, not only by providing treatment guidelines and deci-sion support to physicians, but also by educating the public about appropriate antibiotic use. But the most effective strategy to achieve this goal remains unknown [5]. In the 1990s, one of the first national campaigns to reduce anti-biotic prescribing resulted in a decrease in antibiotic use and penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae in Iceland [6]. Since that time, there have been many other public campaigns, but published data about their impact remain scarce. Until now, the best evidence correlating a national campaign to a reduction in antibiotic use came from Belgium, where yearly mass media campaigns were asso-ciated with a 36 % reduction in antibiotic prescriptions between 1999–2000 and |
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