Elderly Overuse Antibiotics, Shots
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Senior citizens prefer taking shots at hospitals for ailments and bringing strong medicine home, which often leads to the unnecessary prescription of antibiotics, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment service (HIRA) said Tuesday.
Since many doctors give into their elderly patients' ``requests'' from time to time, the antibiotics prescription rate here is far higher than any other country, the state-run agency said.
According to its research for the third quarter last year, the antibiotics prescription rate for colds, flu and other respiratory diseases in South Jeolla Province, which has the highest elderly population in the country, marked 62.4 percent. Gwangju, the capital city of the region, marked 64.3 percent, compared to 51.5 percent in Daejeon and 52.9 percent in North Jeolla Province.
``We have not yet determined the exact reason for the rate difference, but we think senior patients in the regions strongly request doctors to prescribe them antibiotics,'' HIRA official Sohn Gyeong-ae said. ``Since many have strong opinions of their own, doctors are reluctant to convince them that antibiotics are not as helpful as they think they are,'' she added.
HIRA explained that antibiotics don't help fight colds, flu and many other respiratory-type diseases, and their prescription could only place stress the body. Their use is very limited in the United States and other developed countries, the agency said.
It explained that giving shots to outpatients is discouraged by the government due to possible side effects such as inflammation of the veins or acute shock.
However, since many people believe that the shots immediately fight sickness, doctors feel pressurized to give them, the agency said.
``The shot rate marked 25.3 percent at clinics, far beyond the government's recommendation of 5 percent. The rate marked 34.7 percent and 35.9 percent in South Jeolla Province and 35.9 percent in South Gyeongsang Province, which also shows that elderly patients requests are stressing the doctors,'' Sohn said.
HIRA discloses the prescription and usage rate of shots on its Web site every quarter and is campaigning correct antibiotic use.