The publicity about the overuse of antibiotics and the increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics is working. The number of prescriptions for antibiotics continues to decline.
Researchers at Harvard analyzed the antibiotic prescriptions written by doctors in nine health plans from 1996 to 2000. The prescriptions were for children three months to 18 years old. They looked at the number of prescriptions written for each child per year.
In each of the three age groups in the study (three months to three years old, three to six years old, and six to eighteen years old), antibiotic use declined significantly. For the children in the first two groups, the decline was 25%; for the older children it was 16%.
A decrease in the number of prescriptions for ear infections accounted for nearly 60% of the decline. The use of penicillin increased from 49% to 53% of the prescriptions written. This shift away from the newer and more expensive antibiotics is important. The more the newer antibiotics are used, the more types of bacteria that become resistant to them.
The success of the efforts to reduce antibiotic prescription writing is the result of doctors becoming more astute in determining if the infection is really bacterial or not and parents' increased understanding that many infections are viral in nature and don't require antibiotics.
Pediatrics, 9/03, pp. 620-7.
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