Oral antibiotic prescribing by NHS dentists in England 2010–2017

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Br Dent J
• Personal Author:
  Thornhill, Martin H. ; Dayer, Mark J. ; Durkin, Michael J. ; Lockhart, Peter B. ; Baddour, Larry M.
• Description:
  Introduction
  
  Dentists prescribe a significant proportion of all antibiotics, while antimicrobial stewardship aims to minimise antibiotic-prescribing to reduce the risk of developing antibiotic-resistance and adverse drug reactions.
  
  Aims
  
  To evaluate NHS antibiotic-prescribing practices of dentists in England between 2010–2017.
  
  Methods
  
  NHS Digital 2010–2017 data for England were analysed to quantify dental and general primary-care oral antibiotic prescribing.
  
  Results
  
  Dental prescribing accounted for 10.8% of all oral antibiotic prescribing, 18.4% of amoxicillin and 57.0% of metronidazole prescribing in primary care. Amoxicillin accounted for 64.8% of all oral antibiotic prescribing by dentists, followed by metronidazole (28.0%), erythromycin (4.4%), phenoxymethylpenicillin (0.9%), clindamycin (0.6%), co-amoxiclav (0.5%), cephalosporins (0.4%) and tetracyclines (0.3%). Prescriptions by dentists declined during the study period for all antibiotics except for co-amoxiclav. This increase is of concern given the need to restrict co-amoxiclav use to infections where there is no alternative. Dental prescribing of clindamycin, which accounted for 43.9% of primary care prescribing in 2010, accounted for only 14.6% in 2017. Overall oral antibiotic prescribing by dentists fell 24.4% as compared to 14.8% in all of primary care.
  
  Conclusions
  
  These data suggest dentists have reduced antibiotic prescribing, possibly more than in other areas of primary-care. Nonetheless, opportunities remain for further reduction.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Anti-Bacterial Agents Antimicrobial Stewardship Dentists Humans Inappropriate Prescribing Practice Patterns, Dentists' State Medicine
• Source:
  Br Dent J. 227(12):1044-1050
• Pubmed ID:
  31873263
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC7970513
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  KL2 TR002346/TR/NCATS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; L30 AI133778/AI/NIAID NIH HHSUnited States/ ; U54 CK000609/CK/NCEZID CDC HHSUnited States/
• Place as Subject:
  England
• Volume:
  227
• Issue:
  12
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:5ecc4cde39b863b653c3e9e3015dc3235d381872aff10483225cf5ba594bf0e4
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/114231/cdc_114231_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 766.14 KB ]