The Choosing Wisely campaign has these messages for health professionals about using antibiotics wisely.
Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases
- Do not use antibiotics in asymptomatic bacteriuria.
- Do not take a swab or use antibiotics for the management of a leg ulcer without clinical infection.
- Avoid prescribing antibiotics for upper respiratory tract infection (with the exception of sore throat in populations at high risk for complication of group A infection, such as acute rheumatic fever or post-streptococcal glomulornephritis).
Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine
- Do not use antimicrobials to treat bacteriuria in older adults where specific urinary tract symptoms are not present.
College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia And New Zealand
- Consider antibiotic de-escalation daily.
Internal Medicine Society of Australia and New Zealand
- Once patients have become afebrile (non-feverish) and are clinically improving, don’t continue prescribing intravenous antibiotics to those with uncomplicated infections and no high-risk features if they are tolerant of oral antibiotics.
New Zealand and Australian Societies of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery
- Don’t prescribe oral antibiotics for uncomplicated acute discharge from grommets.
- Don’t prescribe oral antibiotics for uncomplicated acute otitis externa.
New Zealand Dermatological Society
- Don’t use oral antibiotics for the treatment of atopic dermatitis unless there is clinical evidence of infection.
- Don’t routinely use topical antibiotics on a surgical wound.
Paediatrics & Child Health
- Do not routinely prescribe oral antibiotics to children with fever without an identified bacterial infection.