Study Warns Against Surge In Antibiotic Use For Young Adults

New Delhi: Younger people are being increasingly prescribed antibiotics without proper assessment of complication risk, finds a study, warning that this may potentially lead to resistance.

The study, led by epidemiologists at the University of Manchester, UK, showed that doctors are prescribing antibiotics for tens of thousands of patients with infections, with little or no consideration of prognosis and the risk of the infection worsening.

The study based on an analysis of 15.7 million patient records, revealed that the most elderly patients in the sample were 31 per cent less likely than the youngest patients to receive an antibiotic for upper respiratory infections.

This means “many younger people are being prescribed antibiotics, even though they are often fit enough to recover without them, potentially leading to resistance,” said the team in the paper, published in the prestigious Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Many older people may not be able to deal with infections without antibiotics are not receiving them, with the potential of complications and hospital admissions.

Patients with combinations of diseases were 7 per cent less likely than people without major health problems to receive an antibiotic for upper respiratory infections.

Further, the findings revealed that the probability of being prescribed antibiotics for a lower respiratory tract or urinary tract infection was unrelated to hospital admission risk.