Doctors over-prescribe antibiotics to children, study says

A new study found doctors are prescribing too many antibiotics to children.

Scientists at Seattle Children’s Hospital looked at decade of patient information and found about 11.4 million antibiotic prescriptions could’ve been prevented each year.

They say the excess antibiotic use not only fails to get rid of any of the children’s viral illnesses, but also supports the dangerous evolution of bacteria toward antibiotic resistance.

A rapid strep test is available to distinguish between bacterial or viral throat infections. But research shows, other than that, physicians have no other clinical tools to tell the cause of most upper respiratory infections.

Researchers hope the study will spur the development of more ways to tell the difference and encourage doctors to think more critically about prescribing antibiotics.

The study was published online Monday in the journal “Pediatrics.”

Agencies/Canadajournal