WA’s peak medical group says parents should be better educated so they do not pressure doctors to give their children antibiotics, as new research shows one-third of antibiotic prescriptions for children in Australian hospitals may be “inappropriate”.
The study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, found between 5 per cent and 34 per cent of antibiotic prescriptions might be deemed inappropriate depending on the hospital, either because of the decision to prescribe, the choice of antibiotic or the way it was applied, such as using an incorrect dose.
It found the overall antibiotic prescription rate in Australia’s eight paediatric hospitals – including Perth’s Princess Margaret Hospital – was “markedly higher” than in Europe.
Australian Medical Association WA president Michael Gannon said the biggest danger of overuse of antibiotics was the threat of antibiotic resistance.
“The more you use antibiotics, the more likely you are to develop resistance and that’s a growing problem,” he said.
Scientists have long warned of the risks posed by antibiotic resistance, which has some experts predicting drug-resistant bacteria could allow simple illnesses to become deadly.
Dr Gannon said the solution to changing the rates of prescription was to better educate doctors and then parents.
He said anecdotally it was common for parents to pressure doctors to prescribe antibiotics for their children. Some became angry when told the illness either did not require or was not best treated by antibiotics.
The MJA study’s research team, led by Assistant Professor Penelope Bryant from Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, studied antibiotic prescriptions over one day in 2012.
Of 1373 children, 46 per cent were prescribed at least one antibiotic – well above the 35 per cent found among hospitalised children in European countries but comparable to figures from non-European hospitals.
They found overall 82 per cent of prescriptions were deemed appropriate but it varied considerably between hospitals, from 66 per cent to 95 per cent.
Of the 631 patients receiving antibiotics, 28 per cent received at least one prescription that was deemed to be inappropriate.
The highest rates of antibiotic prescriptions were in haematology and oncology wards (76 per cent) and paediatric intensive care units (55 per cent).