{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,24]],"date-time":"2026-10-24T00:34:11Z","timestamp":1792802051782,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,24]],"date-time":"2021-12-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1640304000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Antibiotics"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Comprehensive data are needed to monitor antibiotic prescribing and inform stewardship. We aimed to evaluate the current antibiotic prescribing patterns, including treatment switching and prolongation, in the paediatric primary care setting in Italy. This database study assessed antibiotic prescriptions retrieved from Pedianet, a paediatric primary care database, from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2018. Descriptive analyses were stratified by diagnosis class, calendar year, and children\u2019s age. Generalized linear Poisson regression was used to assess variation in the prescriptions. In total, 505,927 antibiotic prescriptions were included. From 2012 to 2018, the number of antibiotics per child decreased significantly by 4% yearly from 0.79 in 2012 to 0.62 in 2018. Amoxicillin prescriptions decreased with increasing children\u2019s age, while macrolides and third-generation cephalosporins had the opposite trend. Prescriptions were associated with a diagnosis of upper respiratory infection in 23% of cases, followed by pharyngitis (21%), bronchitis and bronchiolitis (12%), and acute otitis media (12%). Eight percent of treatment episodes were prolonged or switched class, mostly represented by co-amoxiclav, macrolides, and third-generation cephalosporins. Our findings report an overall decrease in antibiotic prescriptions, but pre-schoolers are still receiving more than one antibiotic yearly, and broad-spectrum antibiotics prescription rates remain the highest.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/antibiotics11010018","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,24]],"date-time":"2021-12-24T08:38:46Z","timestamp":1640335126000},"page":"18","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":25,"title":["Antibiotic Prescribing Patterns in Paediatric Primary Care in Italy: Findings from 2012\u20132018"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0850-8784","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Elisa","family":"Barbieri","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Department for Woman and Child Health, University of Padua, 35100 Padua, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3586-0612","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Costanza","family":"di Chiara","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Department for Woman and Child Health, University of Padua, 35100 Padua, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1948-2631","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Paola","family":"Costenaro","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Department for Woman and Child Health, University of Padua, 35100 Padua, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3700-780X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Anna","family":"Cantarutti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Unit of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Public Health, Department of Statistics and Quantitative Methods, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy"},{"name":"National Centre for Healthcare Research and Pharmacoepidemiology, Department of Statistics and Quantitative Methods, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy"},{"name":"Societ\u00e0 Servizi Telematici\u2013Pedianet, 35121 Padua, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Carlo","family":"Giaquinto","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Department for Woman and Child Health, University of Padua, 35100 Padua, Italy"},{"name":"Societ\u00e0 Servizi Telematici\u2013Pedianet, 35121 Padua, Italy"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7955-852X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yingfen","family":"Hsia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Pharmacy, Queen\u2019s University Belfast, Belfast BT9 7BL, UK"},{"name":"Paediatric Infectious Disease Research Group, St. George\u2019s University of London, London SW17 0RE, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Daniele","family":"Don\u00e1","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Department for Woman and Child Health, University of Padua, 35100 Padua, Italy"},{"name":"Paediatric Infectious Disease Research Group, St. George\u2019s University of London, London SW17 0RE, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"239","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jpeds.2016.11.027","article-title":"Antibiotic Use in Children\u2014A Cross-National Analysis of 6 Countries","volume":"182","author":"Youngster","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. 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