What is already known about this subject:
- Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is considered a serious threat
to public health worldwide, is correlated to the use of antibiotics.
- Antimicrobial stewardship programs need to be adapted to specific
settings taking into account consumption patterns and prescription
determinants. The assessment of geographical variability, patient
characteristics and the possibility of linking prescriptions to
clinical diagnoses enables intervention models to be adapted to the
context making them more effective.
- In Italy both the community consumption of antibiotics and the
prevalence of bacterial resistance are higher than in other European
countries.
What this study adds
- This study provides a model of analysis and presentation of antibiotic
consumption data that can be replicated in other countries: different
information sources and indicators are used (for example,
prescriptions and prevalence of use are used for children); there is a
strong focus on the informative value of data with disaggregation
based on geographic areas and type of patients; information on
diagnoses from a sentinel network of general practitioners is also
provided; the seasonality of prescriptions is shown in parallel with
the trend of flu syndromes.
- The analysis and presentation of these data (partly already used in
national reports) is not only a surveillance activity but also acts as
an implementation tool within the National Action Plan on
Antimicrobial Resistance (PNCAR, 2017-2020) to allow the comparison
between regions and promote the improvement actions already adopted in
those settings that have better prescriptive profiles.
- This study fills an information gap on Italy’s consumption and
prescribing patterns which are presented in aggregate form in European
reports, not highlighting the profound differences between areas both
in terms of quantity and type of antibiotics used. In addition, the
articles published so far are often in Italian and concern only some
regions of the country.