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Changes in antibiotic prescribing following COVID‐19 restrictions: Lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship
AIMS: Public health responses to reduce SARS‐CoV‐2 transmission have profoundly affected the epidemiology and management of other infections. We examined the impact of COVID‐19 restrictions on antibiotic dispensing in Australia. METHODS: We used national claims data to investigate antibiotic dispens...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8444718/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34405427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bcp.15000 |
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author | Gillies, Malcolm B. Burgner, David P. Ivancic, Lorraine Nassar, Natasha Miller, Jessica E. Sullivan, Sheena G. Todd, Isobel M. F. Pearson, Sallie‐Anne Schaffer, Andrea L. Zoega, Helga |
author_facet | Gillies, Malcolm B. Burgner, David P. Ivancic, Lorraine Nassar, Natasha Miller, Jessica E. Sullivan, Sheena G. Todd, Isobel M. F. Pearson, Sallie‐Anne Schaffer, Andrea L. Zoega, Helga |
author_sort | Gillies, Malcolm B. |
collection | PubMed |
description | AIMS: Public health responses to reduce SARS‐CoV‐2 transmission have profoundly affected the epidemiology and management of other infections. We examined the impact of COVID‐19 restrictions on antibiotic dispensing in Australia. METHODS: We used national claims data to investigate antibiotic dispensing trends from November 2015 to October 2020 and whether changes reflected reductions in primary care consultations. We used interrupted time series analysis to quantify changes in monthly antibiotic dispensing and face‐to‐face and telehealth GP consultations and examined changes by recipient age, pharmacy State and prescriber specialty. RESULTS: Over the study period, an estimated 19 921 370 people had 125 495 137 antibiotic dispensings, 71% prescribed by GPs. Following COVID‐19 restrictions, we observed a sustained 36% (95% CI: 33–40%) reduction in antibiotic dispensings from April 2020. Antibiotics recommended for managing respiratory tract infections showed large reductions (range 51–69%), whereas those recommended for non‐respiratory infections were unchanged. Dispensings prescribed by GPs decreased from 63.5 per 1000 population for April–October 2019 to 37.0 per 1000 for April–October 2020. Total GP consultation rates remained stable, but from April 2020, 31% of consultations were telehealth. CONCLUSION: In a setting with a low COVID‐19 incidence, restrictions were associated with a substantial reduction in community dispensings of antibiotics primarily used to treat respiratory infections, coincident with reported reductions in respiratory viral infections. Our findings are informative for post‐pandemic antimicrobial stewardship and highlight the potential to reduce inappropriate prescribing by GPs and specialists for respiratory viral infections. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8444718 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-84447182021-09-17 Changes in antibiotic prescribing following COVID‐19 restrictions: Lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship Gillies, Malcolm B. Burgner, David P. Ivancic, Lorraine Nassar, Natasha Miller, Jessica E. Sullivan, Sheena G. Todd, Isobel M. F. Pearson, Sallie‐Anne Schaffer, Andrea L. Zoega, Helga Br J Clin Pharmacol Original Articles AIMS: Public health responses to reduce SARS‐CoV‐2 transmission have profoundly affected the epidemiology and management of other infections. We examined the impact of COVID‐19 restrictions on antibiotic dispensing in Australia. METHODS: We used national claims data to investigate antibiotic dispensing trends from November 2015 to October 2020 and whether changes reflected reductions in primary care consultations. We used interrupted time series analysis to quantify changes in monthly antibiotic dispensing and face‐to‐face and telehealth GP consultations and examined changes by recipient age, pharmacy State and prescriber specialty. RESULTS: Over the study period, an estimated 19 921 370 people had 125 495 137 antibiotic dispensings, 71% prescribed by GPs. Following COVID‐19 restrictions, we observed a sustained 36% (95% CI: 33–40%) reduction in antibiotic dispensings from April 2020. Antibiotics recommended for managing respiratory tract infections showed large reductions (range 51–69%), whereas those recommended for non‐respiratory infections were unchanged. Dispensings prescribed by GPs decreased from 63.5 per 1000 population for April–October 2019 to 37.0 per 1000 for April–October 2020. Total GP consultation rates remained stable, but from April 2020, 31% of consultations were telehealth. CONCLUSION: In a setting with a low COVID‐19 incidence, restrictions were associated with a substantial reduction in community dispensings of antibiotics primarily used to treat respiratory infections, coincident with reported reductions in respiratory viral infections. Our findings are informative for post‐pandemic antimicrobial stewardship and highlight the potential to reduce inappropriate prescribing by GPs and specialists for respiratory viral infections. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2021-08-17 2022-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8444718/ /pubmed/34405427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bcp.15000 Text en © 2021 The Authors. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Pharmacological Society. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
spellingShingle | Original Articles Gillies, Malcolm B. Burgner, David P. Ivancic, Lorraine Nassar, Natasha Miller, Jessica E. Sullivan, Sheena G. Todd, Isobel M. F. Pearson, Sallie‐Anne Schaffer, Andrea L. Zoega, Helga Changes in antibiotic prescribing following COVID‐19 restrictions: Lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship |
title | Changes in antibiotic prescribing following COVID‐19 restrictions: Lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship |
title_full | Changes in antibiotic prescribing following COVID‐19 restrictions: Lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship |
title_fullStr | Changes in antibiotic prescribing following COVID‐19 restrictions: Lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship |
title_full_unstemmed | Changes in antibiotic prescribing following COVID‐19 restrictions: Lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship |
title_short | Changes in antibiotic prescribing following COVID‐19 restrictions: Lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship |
title_sort | changes in antibiotic prescribing following covid‐19 restrictions: lessons for post‐pandemic antibiotic stewardship |
topic | Original Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8444718/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34405427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bcp.15000 |
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