TY - JOUR T1 - Prescriber preference may influence prolonged antibiotic usage more than patient characteristics in long-term care facilities JF - Evidence Based Nursing JO - Evid Based Nurs SP - 61 LP - 62 DO - 10.1136/eb-2013-101458 VL - 17 IS - 2 AU - Aoife Fleming AU - Stephen Byrne Y1 - 2014/04/01 UR - http://ebn.bmj.com/content/17/2/61.abstract N2 - Commentary on: Daneman N, Gruneir A, Bronskill SE, et al. Prolonged antibiotic treatment in long-term care: role of the prescriber. JAMA Intern Med 2013;173:673–82. 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. 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 … ER -