High antibiotic consumption in Danish intensive care units?

Decreased antibiotic susceptibility among microorganisms isolated from intensive care unit (ICU) patients is found to be associated with high total antibiotic consumption or inappropriate use of antibiotics in the ICUs. The aims of this study were: 1) to characterize the antibiotic consumption in Danish ICUs, and in four ICUs with expectedly large differences in levels of antibiotic consumption, 2) to estimate the association between antibiotic susceptibility among isolated microorganisms and antibiotic consumption. This was done by: 1) a retrospective questionnaire study of the annual supply of antibiotics in 1995 to 30 ICUs in Denmark, and 2) a 2-month prospective study of patients and microbiological samples in four Danish ICUs in 1996. We found that the supply of antibiotics to Danish ICUs was substantial, with a median value of 124 DDD/100 patient days. No association was found between high consumption of antibiotics and decreased antibiotic susceptibility in the four ICUs.