OBJECTIVES Antibiotic exposure in children is a possible contributor to the increasing asthma prevalence in several countries. The present study aimed to investigate the association between antibiotic exposure and the risk of developing childhood asthma at 2-8 years of age. METHODS A case-control study was undertaken among children aged 2-8 years old between March and September 2010 in the Ur...

OBJECTIVES The intensity of antibiotic use in hospital settings is recognized as possibly the most important factor for the selection of antimicrobial resistance. Hospitals are therefore being encouraged to undertake surveillance and benchmarking of antimicrobial consumption patterns with a view to identify and rectify possible evidence of overuse or misuse. METHODS As part of the ARMed proje...

OBJECTIVES To assess quality of outpatient antibiotic use in Europe in 2009 based on the 12 European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC) drug-specific quality indicators and to evaluate changes in quality between 2004 and 2009. METHODS Quality of outpatient antibiotic use in 2009 was compared between 32 countries by calculating the indicator values for 2009 for each of the 12 ESA...

Aims of the study were to compare the paediatric outpatient antibiotic use in two countries with low overall antibiotic consumption and antibacterial resistance levels - Sweden and Estonia - and to describe the adherence to Estonian treatment guideline. All prescriptions for systemic antibiotics for children less than 18 years during 2007 from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register and Estonian H...

BACKGROUND antibiotic-associated diarrhoea caused by Clostridium difficile is increasing in hospitals, and older people are at particular risk. OBJECTIVE to establish whether reducing patient exposure to injectable third-generation cephalosporins by substituting alternative antibiotics can produce a cost-effective reduction in the incidence of antibiotic-associated diarrhoea. DESIGN we pros...

Background.  Little is known about the American public's perceptions or knowledge about antibiotic-resistant bacteria or antibiotic misuse. We hypothesized that although many people recognize antibiotic resistance as a problem, they may not understand the relationship between antibiotic consumption and selection of resistant bacteria. Methods.  We developed and tested a survey asking respondent...