Overprescribing leads to ‘breeding ground’
Bacteria-fighting drugs overprescribed in nursing homes can reportedly create a “breeding ground” for antibiotic-resistant germs that prove difficult or impossible to treat, researchers warn. An analysis of infection rates and treatment patterns over four years was studied with startling results.
Bacteria-fighting drugs overprescribed in nursing homes can reportedly create a “breeding ground” for antibiotic-resistant germs that prove difficult or impossible to treat, researchers warn.
An analysis of infection rates and treatment patterns over four years found about 40% of the antimicrobial drugs given to treat infections caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi were prescribed in breach of relevant clinical guidelines.
The study of four Victorian nursing homes found nearly half of the suspected urinary tract and upper respiratory tract infections for which treatments were prescribed did not meet the infection criteria, and about one-third of the suspected lower respiratory tract and skin infections were also in breach of the guidelines.
The authors, from Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital and Monash University, said it was “of immediate concern that antimicrobials were being prescribed for a large proportion of suspected infections that did not meet criteria for clinical infection”.
Prescribing of antibiotics for bacterial infections of the urine that were not causing the patients any symptoms was another common practice that ran contrary to the guidelines, they wrote.
This was “of particular concern because the emergence of multi-resistant organisms in the residential aged-care facility setting is often attributable to extensive or inappropriate use of antimicrobials,” they added.
