A Decrease in Antibiotic Utilization for Urinary Tract Infections in Women in Long-Term Care Facilities

We have recently documented that antibiotic use in long-term care facilities (LTCF) in British Columbia is high 35 DDD per 1,000 residents per day.(1) Upon further evaluation, we found that the decline in antibiotic use took place after 2012 and was steeper in women compared to men. Antibiotic prescriptions from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2014 were extracted from PharmaNet, a centralized data system that contains information on all prescriptions dispensed from community pharmacies, for all “Plan B” or LTCF residents. Anonymous patient identifiers were used to match to the Medical Service Plan (MSP) billing system for indication (i.e., diagnostic codes based on the ninth revision of the International Classification of Diseases or ICD9). Long-term care population denominator values were estimated from the BC Ministry of Health Home and Community Care database that records each individual commencing or ending a stay at one of BC’s LTCF. To calculate annual estimates, monthly cross-sections of all residents across LTCF in a given year were averaged. Defined daily dose (DDD) was used to calculate consumption rates as the number of defined daily doses consumed daily for every 1,000 long-term care residents