Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the utilization and quality of antibiotic use in the Scottish primary care setting: a population-based segmented interrupted time series analysis

Abstract

Background: Inappropriate use of antibiotics is expected to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are limited data on COVID-19’s long-term impact. We assessed the impact of COVID-19 on the quantity and quality of antibiotic use in Scotland. Research design and methods: A segmented interrupted time series was applied to monthly dispensed antibiotics using prescription cost analysis data from March/2019 to March/2023. Antibiotic use was quantified using the number of items dispensed/1000 inhabitants (TIDs) and defined daily dose/1000 inhabitants/day (DIDs). The quality of antibiotic use was assessed using key quality indicators including the WHO AWaRe classification, proportion of broad-spectrum and ”4C”-antibiotics. Results: Overall, for all antibiotics, there was a non-significant increase in TIDs and DIDs before the first lockdown (March/2020) (β1), but a decline in the level immediately after the first (β2) and second lockdowns (β4) (November/2020), albeit non-significant. However, a significant increase in the time trend after the second lockdown (β5) for all antibiotic classes was observed. COVID-19 had no negative impact on AWaRe utilisation, with the proportion of all antibiotics from the Access group increasing from 76% in March/2019 to 90% in March/2023. The proportion of ”4C” antibiotic reduced significantly after the second lockdown. Conclusions: Neither the utilisation nor the quality of total antibiotic use appeared to have been significantly affected by COVID-19.

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This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/14787210.2024.2363485

Repository URI

https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/328150/