Prescribing Antibiotics in Public Primary Care Clinics in Singapore: A Retrospective Cohort Study
Antibiotic prescription practices in primary care in Singapore have received little scholarly attention. In this study, we ascertained prescription prevalence and identified care gaps and predisposing factors. A retrospective study was conducted on adults (>21 years old) at six public primary car...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Antibiotics (Basel) 2023-04, Vol.12 (4), p.762 |
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Zusammenfassung: | Antibiotic prescription practices in primary care in Singapore have received little scholarly attention. In this study, we ascertained prescription prevalence and identified care gaps and predisposing factors.
A retrospective study was conducted on adults (>21 years old) at six public primary care clinics in Singapore. Prescriptions >14 days were excluded. Descriptive statistics were used to showcase the prevalence data. We used chi-square and logistic regression analyses to identify the factors affecting care gaps.
A total of 141,944 (4.33%) oral and 108,357 (3.31%) topical antibiotics were prescribed for 3,278,562 visits from 2018 to 2021. There was a significant reduction in prescriptions (
< 0.01) before and after the pandemic, which was attributed to the 84% reduction in prescriptions for respiratory conditions. In 2020 to 2021, oral antibiotics were most prescribed for skin (37.7%), genitourinary (20.2%), and respiratory conditions (10.8%). Antibiotic use in the "Access" group (WHO AWaRe classification) improved from 85.6% (2018) to 92.1% (2021). Areas of improvement included a lack of documentation of reasons for antibiotic use, as well as inappropriate antibiotic prescription for skin conditions.
There was a marked reduction in antibiotic prescriptions associated with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further studies could address the gaps identified here and evaluate private-sector primary care to inform antibiotic guidelines and the local development of stewardship programs. |
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ISSN: | 2079-6382 2079-6382 |
DOI: | 10.3390/antibiotics12040762 |