Health Policy Manag.
2015 Dec;25(4):323-333. 10.4332/KJHPA.2015.25.4.323.
Outpatient Antibiotic Prescription Patterns for Respiratory Tract Infections of Infants
- Affiliations
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- 1College of Pharmacy, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
- 2Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, Sejong, Korea.
- 3Graduate School of Public Health, Catholic University, Seoul, Korea.
- 4The Graduate School of Urban Sciences, University of Seoul, Seoul, Korea. choice1313@hanmail.net
- KMID: 2165263
- DOI: http://doi.org/10.4332/KJHPA.2015.25.4.323
Abstract
- BACKGROUND
Antibiotic resistance has been becoming serious challenge to human beings. Overuse of antibiotics, especially, for infants is concerned, but studies are very few for the prescribing pattern of antibiotic use for infants. This study analyzes prescribing patterns of antibiotics in outpatients of preschool children with acute respiratory tract infections in South Korea.
METHODS
Data are used from 2011 Health Insurance Review & Assessment Services-pediatric patients sample. Inclusion criteria is outpatient children (0 to 5 years) with top five frequent diseases. Prescription rates are analyzed by types of disease, provider, specialty, region, and ages. Binary or multinomial logit models are used to analyze determinants of providers' prescription pattern.
RESULTS
The main findings are as follows. First, distributions of prescription rates are shown as L-shape or M-shape depending on the types of disease. Second, the prescription variation is so large among providers, where providers are polarized as a group with low prescription rates and the other group with high prescription rates, though the shapes are shown diversified across types of disease. Third, prescription rates appear to be lower in pediatrics and higher in ENT (ear-nose-throat). Fourth, broad spectrum antibiotics are widely used among children. Finally, the logit analysis shows similar results with descriptive statistics, but partly different results across types of disease.
CONCLUSION
Antibiotics for respiratory tract infections of infants are used excessively with a large variation among providers, and especially broad spectrum antibiotics are used. The prescription guideline for antibiotics should be provided for each specific disease to reduce antibiotic resistance in the future.
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