Self-reported antibiotic allergies are common among hospitalised adults and children. There is a paucity of studies investigating the impact of an antibiotic allergy label in childhood.
To investigate the impact of antibiotic allergy labelling on clinical outcomes in children.
Retrospective study conducted in a major paediatric tertiary hospital, to capture 1672 inpatient admissions in April 2014 and April 2015. Data, collected by chart review, included documented antibiotic allergy labels, antibiotic prescriptions, admitting specialty, hospital length of stay, and hospital readmissions.
Of the 1672 paediatric patients surveyed, 58.1% were male and 44.8% were prescribed antibiotics. Antibiotic allergy labels were recorded in 5.3% of patients; the majority were beta-lactam labels (85%), mostly to unspecified penicillins. There was an increasing incidence of antibiotic allergy label with age, which was statistically significant (P<0.001); no gender effect was seen. Patients with antibiotic allergy labels received more macrolide (p=0.045), quinolones (P=0.01), lincosamide antibiotics (P<0.001) as well as metronidazole (p=0.009) than patients without an antibiotic allergy label. After adjusting for patient age, sex, principal diagnosis and admitting specialty, children with any antibiotic or beta-lactam allergy label had longer hospital lengths of stay (OR 1.62, 95% CI 1.05-2.50, P=0.03; with mean length of stay of 3.8 days for those without a label and 5.2 days for those with a beta-lactam allergy label).
This is the first study demonstrating the negative impact of antibiotic allergy labels on clinical outcomes in children, as evidenced by significant alternate antibiotic use and longer hospital lengths of stay.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
6
11%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences
2
4%
Social Sciences
2
4%
Other
6
11%
Unknown
17
30%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 16. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 October 2024.
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#2,899,509
of 32,972,398 outputs
Outputs from The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice
#852
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Outputs of similar age
#46,020
of 372,868 outputs
Outputs of similar age from The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice
#25
of 109 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,972,398 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 91st percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,910 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 109 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 77% of its contemporaries.
