Most Antibiotics Prescribed to Older Adults Are Unnecessary
Three in four antibiotics prescriptions for patients 65 and older aren’t needed, a recent study found.Two-thirds of antibiotics prescribed to Black people are unnecessary, as are more than half of such prescriptions for Hispanic individuals, according to preliminary results from a study presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Lisbon.“Our results suggest that Black and Hispanic/Latinx patients may not be properly treated and are receiving antibiotic prescriptions even when not indicated,” said an author of the study, Eric Young, of University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, in a statement.Particularly for elderly patients, the stakes of these unnecessary prescriptions are high, Young said. “In older adults, inappropriate prescribing in primary care is associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes, including emergency hospital attendances…