Younger people are increasingly being prescribed antibiotics without a proper assessment of complication risks, warns a new study. This practice could potentially lead to antibiotic resistance.
The study, led by epidemiologists at the University of Manchester, UK, found that doctors are prescribing antibiotics to tens of thousands of patients with infections, often without considering the prognosis or the risk of the infection worsening.
An analysis of 15.7 million patient records revealed that the oldest patients in the sample were 31% less likely than the youngest patients to receive an antibiotic for upper respiratory infections.
This suggests that “many younger people are being prescribed antibiotics even though they are often fit enough to recover without them, potentially leading to resistance,” the research team stated in their paper, published in the prestigious Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Conversely, many older individuals—who may not be able to combat infections without antibiotics—are not receiving them, increasing the risk of complications and hospital admissions.
Patients with multiple health conditions were 7% less likely than those without major health issues to receive an antibiotic for upper respiratory infections.
Furthermore, the study found that the likelihood of being prescribed antibiotics for lower respiratory tract or urinary tract infections was unrelated to hospital admission risk. Meanwhile, the probability of receiving antibiotics for upper respiratory tract infections was only weakly linked to hospital admission risk.
“Antibiotics are effective in treating bacterial infections, but their inappropriate use carries the risk of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and loss of effectiveness. That is why AMR has been recognized as one of the biggest threats to global public health,” said lead author Professor Tjeerd van Staa from the University of Manchester.
“The study finds that antibiotics for common infections are often not prescribed according to complication risk, suggesting there is significant scope to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescribing,” van Staa added.
Dr. Ali Fahmi from the university urged clinicians to “focus on improving risk-based antibiotic prescribing for infections that are less severe and typically self-limiting.”
-IANS
