Veterinary treatment strategies for clinical mastitis in dairy cows in Sweden

To evaluate if Swedish veterinary guidelines on use of antimicrobials in cases of clinical mastitis in dairy cows have been adopted by veterinary practitioners, their treatment strategies were evaluated in a cross-sectional study using a web-based questionnaire. Another aim was to study if the strategies differed among veterinarians due to year and country of exam, sex, region, numbers of mastitis cases per month, and postgraduate training in herd health using multivariable logistic regression models. In total, 267 of 741 (36 per cent) veterinarians contacted answered the questionnaire satisfactorily. Most considered bacteriological diagnostics important, but many veterinarians made treatment decisions without collecting information on antimicrobial susceptibility. Moreover, few veterinarians used measuring tape to assess bodyweight before dosing parenteral antimicrobials. Year of exam and postgraduate training were the veterinary demographic factors associated with most treatment routines. The questions associated with most demographic factors were if antimicrobial treatment is affected by knowledge on earlier udder pathogens in the herd, and how often NSAID and follow-up of treatment using milk somatic cell count are used. Overall, the veterinarians followed the Swedish guidelines rather well, but discrepancies in need for improvement were found.