High antibiotic consumption in Danish intensive care units?

Decreased antibiotic susceptibility among microorganisms isolated from inte nsive care unit (ICU) patients is found to be associated with high total an tibiotic consumption or inappropriate use of antibiotics in the ICUs. The a ims of this study were: 1) to characterize the antibiotic consumption in Da nish ICUs, and in four ICUs with expectedly large differences in levels of antibiotic consumption, 2) to estimate the association between antibiotic s usceptibility among isolated microorganisms and antibiotic consumption. Thi s was done by: 1) a retrospective questionnaire study of the annual supply of antibiotics in 1995 to 30 ICUs in Denmark, and 2) a 2-month prospective study of patients and microbiological samples in four Danish ICUs in 1996. We found that the supply of antibiotics to Danish ICUs was substantial, wit h a median value of 124 DDD/100 patient days. No association was found betw een high consumption of antibiotics and decreased antibiotic susceptibility in the four ICUs.