Abstract Background: Inappropriate antibiotic prescribing contributes to antibiotic resistance threats. In outpatient settings, antibiotics are often incorrectly prescribed for acute respiratory illnesses (ARI). Characteristics associated with inappropriate antibiotic prescribing at New York City (NYC) outpatient ARI visits were assessed to identify opportunities for interventions. Methods: Using IQVIA’s commercial Medical Claims and Longitudinal Prescription datasets, medical diagnosis codes identified outpatient visits for ARI during 2019–2022, which were linked to antibiotics obtained at a pharmacy (as a proxy for prescribed antibiotics) within 3 days post-visit. Univariate analyses were conducted describing visit, patient, and provider characteristics. Modified Poisson regression with robust error variance was used to calculate unadjusted relative risks (RR) and 95% CI for visit-level characteristics associated with inappropriate prescribing. Results: Among 3,493,444 ARI outpatient visits, 5.1% linked to an inappropriate antibiotic prescription. Among all ARI, bronchitis/bronchiolitis had the highest percentage (25.5% of bronchitis/bronchiolitis visits) and highest risk of inappropriate prescribing relative to asthma/allergy (RR: 18.03; 95% CI: 17.70, 18.38). Adults aged 65–79 years were over twice as likely to be prescribed inappropriate antibiotics relative to children (RR: 2.21; 95% CI: 2.17, 2.25). Inappropriate prescribing was highest in urgent care (8.4%) (RR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.23, 1.27) relative to offices and among internal medicine physicians (8.0%); relative to these physicians, risk of inappropriate prescribing among all other physician specialties was lower. Conclusions: Inappropriate antibiotic prescribing at ARI outpatient visits was uncommon. Tailoring interventions to providers such as internal medicine physicians or those in urgent care settings may improve prescribing practices.
Santiago et al. (Thu,) studied this question.