A new study shows that antibiotics were prescribed inappropriately for about 33 percent of surgery patients at U.S. children's hospitals, according to the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
The study, published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, includes data from EHRs at 32 children's hospitals in the U.S. The data was collected from September 2016 to December 2017 and shows 1,324 children receiving antibiotics before surgeries.
Researchers found that in 485 cases, antibiotics given before surgery were inappropriate, either because they were administered for longer than 24 hours, because the patient did not need the antibiotics or because the antibiotics used were too broad-spectrum.
Inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions were highest for otolaryngologic patients (62.7 percent), cosmetic or reconstructive surgery patients (40.7 percent) and neurosurgery patients (40.3 percent).
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