Infections due to one particular family of bacteria called Enterobacteriaceae are increasing in Oxfordshire and worldwide, as are infections resistant to the commonly-used beta-lactam antibiotics (such as co-amoxiclav, sometimes also called augmentin).
Treating people with particular types of antibiotics may make people more likely to get resistant infections in the future.
We want to see whether ‘stronger’ antibiotics, or longer courses of antibiotics, that people got in hospital make people more likely to develop infections due to resistant bacteria from the Enterobacteriaceae family.
We will compare prior hospital antibiotic use in patients who get these resistant Enterobacteriaceae infections in their blood to use in patients who get infections with bacteria that are still susceptible to these drugs. We will also look at patients who get infections due to other types of resistant and susceptible bacteria. This will help us work out whether, and which, antibiotics might affect the risk of developing these resistant infections.
We could use this information to see whether reducing use of certain types of antibiotics, or reducing the length of treatment, could be useful in preventing resistant infections in the future.