Changes in antibiotic prescribing by dentists in the United States, 2012-2019

Abstract

Objectives: Dentists prescribe 10% of all outpatient antibiotics in the United States and are the top specialty prescriber. Data on current antibiotic prescribing trends are scarce. Therefore, we evaluated trends in antibiotic prescribing rates by dentists, and we further assessed whether these trends differed by agent, specialty, and by patient characteristics. Design: Retrospective study of dental antibiotic prescribing included data from the IQVIA Longitudinal Prescription Data set from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2019. Methods: The change in the dentist prescribing rate and mean days' supply were evaluated using linear regression models. Results: Dentists wrote >216 million antibiotic prescriptions between 2012 and 2019. The annual dental antibiotic prescribing rate remained steady over time (P =.5915). However, the dental prescribing rate (antibiotic prescriptions per 1,000 dentists) increased in the Northeast (by 1,313 antibiotics per 1,000 dentists per year), among oral and maxillofacial surgeons (n = 13,054), prosthodontists (n = 2,381), endodontists (n = 2,255), periodontists (n = 1,961), and for amoxicillin (n = 2,562; P