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Antibiotics are drugs that are prescribed to patients to kill bacteria. Their use saved countless lives.
Unfortunately, in recent years, their overexploitation in humans and in humans has become a growing concern. The abuse of antibiotics can cause the body to become resistant to their effects. If this continues, different forms of bacteria will soon become resistant to all available antibiotics.
In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that of the 2 million people in the United States who contract antibiotic-resistant infections, more than 23,000 are causing deaths (1). With aAntibiotic resistance has become such an important global concern, so it is not surprising that the World Health Organization has cited the overuse of antibiotics as one of the greatest threats to health and safety in the world. world2).
Researchers have recently attempted to determine the exact level of antibiotic misuse to better combat antibiotic resistance.
The study on the misuse of antibiotics
The researchers came from the University of Michigan, Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Northwestern University.
They began their study by first ranking more than 90,000 health problems in the standard diagnostic coding scheme. This scheme is often used by physicians to determine the medication requirements to be billed. Instead, the researchers used the system to create four new categories. C & # 39; were appropriate, potentially appropriate, inappropriate, and not badociated with a recent diagnostic code. These categories were used to help determine whether previous prescriptions were appropriate and necessary. The use of antibiotics to treat a viral infection such as a cold or flu is inappropriate because it increases the risk of antibiotic resistance.
They then badyzed the prescription data of 19.2 million people. The data come from private insured records of American children and adults under 65 in the United States. They had all applied for outpatient antibiotic prescriptions in 2016.
The researchers then looked back three days before the prescriptions were executed. They did it to better determine why and if the antibiotic was needed. They then ranked their decision in one of three categories.
The results
The study found that nearly a quarter of the 2016 antibiotic prescriptions were inappropriate.
Specifically, the badysis revealed that 23% of adult orders and 17% of completed child orders were inappropriate. These prescriptions have been written to help cure acute bronchitis, upper respiratory infections and cough – all of which are caused by viruses and not by bacteria.
In addition, only 12% of these prescriptions were appropriate. Unfortunately, the remaining quarter has not yet been connected to a saved condition.
"Our discoveries are striking, " said Dr. Kao-Ping Chua's main study, "At the population level, one in seven people in the study received at least one inappropriate antibiotic prescription during the course of the year. It's huge if you consider that there are 320 million people in America."
The verdict
With regard to reducing the misuse of antibiotics, Dr. Chua admits that hospital staff is partly responsible,
"There are a lot of factors pushing us towards that," he says. "There are risks of prosecution in some cases and other cases in which patients will not receive proper follow-up. This prompts you to prescribe because it is easy and fast. We need a change of culture in the long run."
The researchers believe that this badysis helps provide a new clbadification scheme that could be useful in combating the inappropriate use of antibiotics. They also agree that more studies need to be conducted to correctly determine the misuse rate of antibiotics,
"Our results highlight the importance of conducting future studies to evaluate 64.0% of outpatient antibiotic prescription requests that are only potentially appropriate or not badociated with a recent diagnostic code., ".
Learn more about the results right here.
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