Clinical indications for antibiotic prescribing in Danish general practice

An updated overview of the antibiotic prescribing pattern in Danish general practice is needed to help inform continued efforts for rational antibiotic prescribing.

To investigate clinical indications for antibiotic prescriptions issued in general practice in Denmark.

This register-based study included all redeemed antibiotic prescriptions issued in Danish general practice between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023. Data were extracted from 'Antibiotikastatistik', a publicly available register maintained by the Danish Health Data Authority. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the distribution of the clinical indications. Furthermore, the distribution of the antibiotics prescriptions was analyzed by age across different clinical indication groups, stratified by gender.

A total of 1,916,910 antibiotic prescriptions were issued from Danish general practice in 2023. More than half of these prescriptions were used for treatment of either a respiratory tract infection (28.4%) or a urinary tract infection (26.7%). Throat infection and pneumonia comprised about 70% of indications for treatment of a respiratory tract infection. Prophylactic treatment was mainly used for elderly patients - and most often for urinary tract infections. Some 23.3% of the prescriptions either contained an 'unspecific indication' or had no indication stated.

This study provides a solid overview of indications used for antibiotic prescriptions in Danish general practice. This information might be used for development of future antibiotic stewardship interventions.