Dental antibiotic prescribing significantly higher in US
A comparison of dental antibiotic prescribing rates found that US dentists prescribe antibiotics much more frequently than those in England, Australia, and Canada, researchers reported today in
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
The population-level analysis of dental antibiotic prescribing looked at pharmacy-dispensed systemic antibiotic prescriptions by dentists in the United States, England, Australia, and British Columbia in 2017. The three outcomes analyzed for each country were the rate of antibiotic prescribing per 1,000 population, the relative proportions of each antibiotic class, and the prescribing rate per 1,000 population of each antibiotic type.
Dentists in the United States prescribed 23.6 million antibiotic items in 2017, compared with 3 million in England, 0.8 million in Australia, and 0.3 million in British Columbia. US dentists also had the highest prescribing rate (72.6 antibiotic items per 1,00