Investigate Primary Care Antibiotic Prescribing in a Spinal Injury (SCI) cohort using an EMR Database

Research

Objectives: To describe primary care antibiotic prescribing in individuals with a spinal cord Injury (SCI) rostered to a primary care physician.

Design: This was a retrospective cohort study using linked health administrative and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) databases to identify antibiotic prescriptions from January 1 ,2013 to December 31, 2015 in individuals with SCI living in the community.Setting: An EMR database which contains data from primary care physicians and their rostered patients in Ontario, Canada.Participants: Four hundred and thirty-two individuals with SCI.Interventions: N/AMain Outcome Measures: Antibiotic prescription total number, classes, duration and indication. Patient or physician factors associated with number of antibiotics prescribed, and prescription duration.

Results: During the study period, 61.1% of the SCI cohort received an antibiotic prescription from their primary care physician. Additionally, 59.8% of prescriptions were for urinary tract infections (UTI) and 24.6% of prescriptions were for fluoroquinolones. Regression analysis found catheter use was associated with the number of antibiotics prescribed, and physician’s years of practice was associated with prescription duration.

Conclusions: UTIs were the number one prescription indication and fluoroquinolones were the most prescribed antibiotic class. Catheter users were prescribed more antibiotics and late-career physicians prescribed longer antibiotic durations. The study provided important information about primary care antibiotic prescribing in an outpatient SCI population such that not all individuals received frequent antibiotics prescriptions, and antibiotic use for UTIs requires further exploration.Author(s) Disclosures: The authors have no conflict of interests to disclose.