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Excessive antibiotic use is well documented among both outpatients and adult inpatients, but little is known about the scope of antibiotic use in pediatric hospitals. To address this knowledge gap, investigators reviewed inpatient data from 40 free-standing children's hospitals in the U.S. Antibiotic use was determined from hospital billing data.
More than 550,000 discharges were analyzed for 2008. Overall, 60% of the children had received an antibiotic during hospitalization, and, of these, 21% had received broad-spectrum antibiotics. In certain groups — those who had surgery, those with central venous catheters, those with prolonged ventilation, and those in the hospital for >14 days — ≥90% of children had received an antibiotic, and these…