A recent New York study has reported that hospitals in the United States are prescribing multiple antibiotics, advising patients to take the medications for several days even if just one is substantial enough.
Public and private health agencies have given sufficient warning that antibiotic overuse creates a breeding ground for dangerous bacteria that rejects treatm. Although there have been studies on antibiotic overuse, much of these tackle doctors' wrong prescriptions of antibiotics that target bacteria for virus-induced sicknesses.
On the other hand, this new study published Wednesday gives light on how doctors advise their patients to take more than one antibiotic to battle a "mystery infection".
According to University of Wisconsin's Dr. Barry Fox, doctors initially prescribe a number of antibiotics particularly when they are not yet sure of the patient's disease, in the hope that at least one of the medications will help. Dr. Fox was not involved in the study.
As soon as the tests are done and the culprit is already identified, the doctor's job is to ask the patient to stop taking the other unneccessary antibiotics and focus on just one that will deal with the bug, said Dr. Fox and other health experts.
However, the research discovered that in 75% of 500 hospitals involved in the study, patients were still taking more than one intravenous antibiotic after two days. Data were based on records from the years 2008 to 2011.
According to the authors, the use of "redundant antibiotics" not only increase medical costs but can trigger side effects like diarrhea. Twenty-three antibiotic combinations were examined, yet these medications should never be used together even before test results are given, said Dr. Arjun Srinivasan, one of the researchers.
Published in the medical journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, this study is the first national study that has investigated on this important issue.