Adverse drug reactions due to oral antibiotics prescribed in the community setting – England

Abstract

Background: Prescribing of oral antibiotics in the community setting is commonplace with ongoing efforts to optimize this practice. There are several concerns related to such prescriptions including antibiotic cost, development of bacterial resistance, and associated adverse drug reactions. We therefore performed an analysis of adverse drug reactions associated with oral antibiotics prescribed in community care (non-hospital) in England to determine adverse drug reaction reporting rates and severity of adverse reactions.

Methods: Data for all oral antibiotic use in the primary care settings in England and the National Yellow Card Interactive Drug Analysis Profile was extracted for 2010 through 2017.

Results: There were 320,599,292 prescriptions issued for oral antibiotics during the eight-year survey. Although the overall adverse drug reaction rate was relatively low at 58/1,000,000 prescriptions, the reported rates of serious (63.6%) and fatal (1.21%) reactions were striking and probably due to reporting bias as minor adverse drug reactions are less likely to be reported.

Conclusions: Continued monitoring of adverse drug reactions rates for oral antibiotics prescribed in the community is warranted, considering the prevalence of serious and fatal reactions identified during the eight-year study period in the Yellow Card profile. These data should be useful in developing strategies to secure optimal prescribing practices.

Keywords:

• Antibiotics
• England
• oral
• community setting
• adverse drug reactions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.