Nearly one in two seniors in Ontario who visited a family doctor for a non-bacterial infection received an unnecessary antibiotic prescription, according to a new study from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) Western site in London, Ontario and Lawson Health Research Institute.
“Our study shows that antibiotics are being prescribed too often for conditions that they cannot help despite published professional guidelines that discourage this practice. Unnecessary antibiotics can cause serious harm,” says Dr. Michael Silverman, author of the study
Article: Antibiotic Prescribing for Nonbacterial Acute Upper Respiratory Infections in Elderly Persons, Michael Silverman, MD, Marcus Povitz, MDCM, MSc; Jessica M. Sontrop, PhD; Lihua Li, PhD; Lucie Richard, MA; Sonny Cejic, MD; Salimah Z. Shariff, PhD, Annals of Internal Medicine, doi: 10.7326/M16-1131, published 9 May 2017.
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