[Extra-hospital consumption of anti-infective agents in a defined daily doses per thousand inhabitants per day]

To analyse the non-hospital use of drugs against infection (excluding antivirals and antimycotics) in the province of Zaragoza during 1994 by means of the application of the concept of the defined daily dose (DDD) as a technical unit of measurement, and defined daily dose per 1000 inhabitants per day (DID) as an indicator to facilitate comparison.

A retrospective observational study.

Primary care.

All the prescriptions for medicines to combat infection filled outside the hospital (940,662 units) in the province of Zaragoza. These following subgroups: J01 Systemic antibiotics, J03 Systemic chemotherapy drugs, J04A Tuberculosis, G04A Antiseptic and urinary infection drugs and R05C1 Mucolytic and anti-infection expectorants.

8.6% of the total medicine prescribed in 1994 were drugs to combat infection, with 17.70 DID. The 4 most commonly prescribed subgroups were: penicillin, macrolides, tetracycline and cephalosporins. The 10 most commonly used active principals were, in descending order: amoxycillin, amoxycillin/clavulanic, erythromycin, cotrimoxazol, doxycyclin, cyprofloxacin, norfloxacin, roxythromycin, clarithromycin, pipemidic acid.

The use of drugs to combat infection in our province is essentially no different from what other authors have observed. It would be interesting to carry out a follow-up study on the use of third-generation fluorquinolones and cephalosporins in primary care and to relate use of them to the evolution of resistance to anti-microbe drugs.