Assessment of the relationship between antimicrobial usage and susceptibility: differences between the hospital and specific patient-care areas.
Current evidence suggests that controlling antibiotic resistance requires the monitoring of both susceptibility trends and antimicrobial usage within specific patient-care areas of the hospital. To assess the differences between antimicrobial usage-versus-susceptibility relationships found in the hospital and those relationships found in specific patient-care areas, susceptibility and antimicrobial usage data collected over a 5-year period (1992-1996) at the Medical University of South Carolina were analyzed. For each area, the relationship between drug use and susceptibility was analyzed for 8 gram-negative organisms with respect to 19 different agents and for 3 staphylococci with respect to 10 agents with use of simple linear regression. The relationships found in the hospital had a poorer overall agreement with the relationships found in the intensive care units (ICUs; <20%) than they did with the relationships found in the non-ICUs ( approximately 65%). Surveillance should include both susceptibility and drug usage patterns in individual areas within an institution.
Medical University of South Carolina, College of Pharmacy, Anti-Infective Research Laboratory, Charleston, SC, 29425, USA. whiterl@musc.edu
R L
RL
White
L V
LV
Friedrich
L B
LB
Mihm
J A
JA
Bosso
D000328:Adult; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006090:Gram-Negative Bacteria / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D005791:Patient Care; D013210:Staphylococcus / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000302:isolation & purification
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents