INTRODUCTION Approximately 30% of all outpatient antimicrobials are inappropriately prescribed. Currently, antimicrobial prescribing patterns in emergency departments (ED) are not well described. Determining inappropriate antimicrobial prescribing patterns and opportunities for interventions by antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP) are needed. METHODS A retrospective chart review was perfo...

BACKGROUND Explicit criteria for determining potentially inappropriate medication consumption in elderly were elaborated by Beers et al. These lists have been used worldwide to evaluate medical prescriptions but there is little epidemiologic evidence demonstrating negative consequences of inappropriate medication use. It has been reported that some drugs could increase the risk of falls, which ...

BACKGROUND Fluoroquinolones (FQ) are increasingly prescribed for children, despite being labeled for only a limited number of labeled pediatric indications. In this multicenter retrospective drug utilization study, we analyzed indications for systemic FQ prescriptions in hospitalized children and the appropriateness of the prescribed dose. METHODS Using data obtained from electronic medical f...

PURPOSE We conducted a study to measure the impact of three sequential levels of intervention on prescribing patterns of acid-suppressive medications (ASMs) on an inpatient internal medicine service at a university hospital. METHODS THIS RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW COMPARED PRESCRIBING PATTERNS ON FOUR DIFFERENT TIERS: a phase 1 study, conducted one year before the phase 2 intervention study; and th...

Acute bronchitis is a predominantly viral illness and, according to clinical practice guidelines, should not be treated with antibiotics. Despite clear guidelines, acute bronchitis continues to be the most common acute respiratory illness for which antibiotics are incorrectly prescribed. Although the national benchmark for antibiotic prescribing for adults with acute bronchitis is 0%, a prelimi...

BACKGROUND Polypharmacy and inappropriate medication prescriptions are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Most interventions proposed to improve appropriate prescribing are time and resource intensive and therefore hardly applicable in daily clinical practice. OBJECTIVE To test the efficacy of an easy-to-use checklist aimed at supporting the therapeutic reasoning of physicians...

The objective of this study is to explore the influence of current therapeutic recommendations on the prescribing trends of anti-hypertensive drugs in general medical practice in Palestine. Five hundred and seventy four anti-hypertensive prescriptions were analyzed. The percentage of mono-therapy prescriptions was 48.25% and that for combinational therapy prescriptions was 51.75%. Among the mon...

BACKGROUND Appropriate prescription of dabigatran etexilate methanesulfonate (JAN) is more complicated than assumed, because there are totally 10 items of contraindications and instructions for dosage reduction depending on patients' characteristics. We aimed to study whether the routine audit of first-time prescriptions of dabigatran performed by pharmacists is effective in improving the quali...

COVID-19 pandemic-related pressures on primary care may have driven the inappropriate continuation of antibiotic prescriptions. Yet, prescribing modality (repeat/non-repeat) has not previously been investigated in a pandemic context. With approval NHS England, we conducted retrospective cohort study >19 million English patient records using OpenSAFELY-TPP analytics platform. We analysed repe...

BACKGROUND More than half of all antibiotic prescriptions in general practice are issued for respiratory tract infections (RTIs), despite convincing evidence that many of these infections are caused by viruses. Frequent misuse of antimicrobial agents is of great global health concern, as we face an emerging worldwide threat of bacterial antibiotic resistance. There is an increasing need to iden...