Study: Hospitals Give Patients Antibiotics For No Reason At All

Some hospital patients are on antibiotics for good reason: They have an infection, or they're at high risk for getting one. But according to a new study, other patients are given antibiotics for no reason whatsoever. Researchers could find "no documented rationale" for 7 percent of surveyed participants who had been given prescriptions.

Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed patients in 183 hospitals across 10 states over the course of five months to capture a clearer picture of how often antibiotics are prescribed, how much is prescribed, and for how long. Of the roughly 11,000 patients surveyed close to half confirmed they had been given antibiotics. Most of this group also reported they were taking more than one form—some up to four different kinds at once.

To understand how to improve antibiotic use, researchers also sought to identify which drugs are most commonly used and why. Though there are 83 different antibiotic drugs available, four specific kinds (parenteral vancomycin, piperacilintazobactam, cefriaxone, and levofloxacin) are used most often, sometimes when they are not the best fit for the infection being treated...