A new study from Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital shows that fewer prescriptions of antibiotics are written for very young children. This is good news as the medicine has damaging side effects. The study also shows that the older children were when they experienced their first winter, the higher the risk of them receiving antibiotics.

2017.10.05 | Helle Horskjær Hansen

Children are most often given antibiotics during the winter months. The researchers found that the month in which the child was born has a bearing on how vulnerable children are to receiving a course of antibiotic treatment. Photo: Colourbox.

Medical doctors are no longer as busy writing prescriptions for antibiotics for children. A study carried out by AU and AUH in collaboration with the University of North Carolina in the USA shows that Danish medical doctors write fewer prescriptions for penicillin following the Danish Health and Medicines Authority’s introduction of nationwide vaccination programmes for pneumococcal diseases in 2007 and 2010, and following the issuing of more restrictive clinical guidelines for when medical doctors should issue penicillin on prescription.

The researchers found that the share of small children in Denmark who received antibiotics at least once during their first year of life decreased from 40.7 per cent of children born in 2004 to 34.6 per cent of children born in 2012.

The results were recently published in the scientific journal about health and diseases in children Pediatrics.

"Our results emphasise how important it is to vaccinate children against pneumococcal diseases as part of a wide range of efforts to reduce the unnecessary writing of prescriptions for antibiotics and to avoid complications relating to pneumococcal diseases. Widespread use of antibiotics leads to resistance to antibiotics, and this poses a serious threat to public health throughout the world," says one of the authors behind the study, Henrik Toft Sørensen from the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Aarhus University Hospital. 

Older children receive more antibiotics

Children are most often given antibiotics during the winter months. The researchers found that the month in which the child was born has a bearing on how vulnerable children are to receiving a course of antibiotic treatment. The older the children were when they experienced their first winter, the greater the risk that they would be given a prescription for antibiotics.

"Children born in March, April and May are more at risk. Our findings could have important implications for future research into the use of antibiotics for children, as some children can be more affected by long-term side effects from the use of antibiotics simply because of the time of year when they were born," says Henrik Toft Sørensen.
 
Unnecessary use of antibiotics in early childhood can lead to an increased risk of chronic diseases such as asthma and allergy among children. Previous studies have shown that approximately 20-50 per cent of prescriptions for antibiotics for children are given even though the child has a non-bacterial infection of the upper airways. This is therefore an example of the unnecessary use of antibiotics, as antibiotics are generally not effective against this kind of infection. 

"We have carried out this study to describe how the writing of prescriptions for antibiotics has changed in Denmark. The Danish Health and Medicines Authority introduced the nationwide pneumococcal vaccination against pneumonia and other diseases which is given for the first time when the child is three months old. The new guidelines for issuing prescriptions for antibiotics were released at the same time, and according to our hypothesis, this must have affected prescriptions for antibiotics," explains Henrik Toft Sørensen.  

The researchers analysed Danish registry data from more than half a million children born between 2004 and up to and including 2012.

Background for the results 

The study is register-based research.

The researchers behind the study come from the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at Aarhus University Hospital, with researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the USA also involved.

The study is financed by the Department of Clinical Medicine at AU, the Department of Clinical Epidemiology at AUH and the National Institutes of Health.

Read the scientific article “Trends in Antibiotic Use by Birth Season and Birth Year”. 

Contact

Professor, Department Chair Henrik Toft Sørensen
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine and
Aarhus University Hospital, Department of Clinical Epidemiology
Tel.: (+45) 8716 8215
hts@clin.au.dk