Serious bacterial infections and antibiotic prescribing in primary care: cohort study using electronic health records in the UK.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

This study evaluated whether serious bacterial infections are more frequent at family practices with lower antibiotic prescribing rates.

Design

Cohort study.

Setting

706 UK family practices in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink from 2002 to 2017.

Participants

10.1 million registered patients with 69.3 million patient-years' follow-up.

Exposures

All antibiotic prescriptions, subgroups of acute and repeat antibiotic prescriptions, and proportion of antibiotic prescriptions associated with specific-coded indications.

Main outcome measures

First episodes of serious bacterial infections. Poisson models were fitted adjusting for age group, gender, comorbidity, deprivation, region and calendar year, with random intercepts representing fami

SUBMITTER: Gulliford MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7050314 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature