Prevalence of unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions among dental visits, 2019

The US National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria established a goal to decrease unnecessary outpatient antibiotic use by 50%. However, data to inform this goal have been limited to medical settings and have not included dental prescribing. Thus, we sought to identify the proportion of antibiotics prescribed inappropriately by dentists to inform outpatient stewardship efforts.

Cross-sectional analysis of 2019 Veterans' Affairs (VA) national electronic health record data. Antibiotics prescribed by dentists were evaluated for appropriateness based on 2 definitions: one derived from current guidelines (consensus-based recommendations) and the other based on relevant clinical literature (nonconsensus). A clustered binomial logistic regression model determined factors associated with discordant prescribing.

In total, 92,224 antibiotic prescriptions (63% amoxicillin; mean supply, 8.0 days) were associated with 88,539 dental visits. Prophylaxis for complications in medically compromised patients was associated with the most (30.9%) antibiotic prescriptions, followed by prevention of postsurgical complications (20.1%) and infective endocarditis (18.0%). At the visit level, 15,476 (17.5%) met the consensus-based definition for appropriate antibiotic usage and 56,946 (64.3%) met the nonconsensus definition.

More than half of antibiotics prescribed by dentists do not have guidelines supporting their use. Regardless of definition applied, antibiotics prescribed by dentists were commonly unnecessary. Improving prescribing by dentists is critical to reach the national goal to decrease unnecessary antibiotic use.