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Cohort study
Prescriber preference may influence prolonged antibiotic usage more than patient characteristics in long-term care facilities
  1. Aoife Fleming1,
  2. Stephen Byrne2
  1. 1 Department of Epidemiology & Public health and School of Pharmacy, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland; 
  2. 2 School of Pharmacy, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
  1. Correspondence to: Aoife Fleming
    Department of Epidemiology & Public health and School of Pharmacy, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland; a.fleming{at}ucc.ie

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Implications for practice and research

  • Longer antimicrobial prescription durations are often driven by prescriber preference.

  • Antimicrobial stewardship strategies should focus on prescription durations and target the determinants of prescriber behaviours in order to improve long-term care facilities (LTCF) antimicrobial prescribing.

Context

Recent point prevalence studies have revealed that antimicrobial use in LTCF is highly variable, with 1.4% of residents in Germany and Latvia to 19.4% of residents in Northern Ireland being prescribed an antimicrobial.1 Daneman et al 2 conducted a point prevalence study in Ontario, Canada in 2009 and found that, on average 5.9% (range=2.24–10.8%) of residents were receiving an antibiotic. A wide …

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Footnotes

  • Competing interests None.