Understanding antibiotic resistance
4 Rapid infection diagnostics
Prescribing unnecessary antibiotics increases the chances of antibiotic resistance developing. This is often because broad-spectrum antibiotics are prescribed before the infection is diagnosed. Reducing the amount of time taken to diagnose an infection will help to reduce the unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics (Figure 9). This is the goal of rapid diagnostics.
Figure 9 Unnecessary prescription of antibiotics to treat respiratory problems in the USA (O’Neill, 2016).
OpenLearn - Understanding antibiotic resistance
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