Patterns of antimicrobial therapy for pediatric patients

The pattern of antimicrobial prescribing for outpatients and inpatients in a Swedish pediatric department was evaluated in 1975 and 1982. The changes in the pattern during these 7 yr were small and, with regard to outpatients, very similar to those in the whole of Sweden. In these children phenoxymethylpenicillin (penicillin V) was the predominant antimicrobial (approximately 70%), followed by erythromycin and medium wide-spectrum penicillins (ampicillin/amoxycillin). Prescriptions for erythromycin in outpatients increased from 8 to 16%. The corresponding figures for Sweden as a whole were from 13 to 20%. This increase might partly be explained by the higher frequency of pertussis in Sweden in the last few years, but it is probably also a manifestation of an insufficiently motivated widening of the range of indications for erythromycin. A comparison between the prescribing patterns in Sweden and North America showed an obvious difference. In the USA the medium wide-spectrum penicillins are more used than penicillin V. This difference is discussed and found to be probably due to a real difference in antimicrobial policy. Penicillin V and G also dominated the inpatient prescriptions (51% in 1975 and 42% in 1982), which also differed from some North American hospitals.