Rodríguez Fernández, AlmudenaVázquez, OlallaPiñeiro Lamas, MaríaHerdeiro, Maria Teresa FerreiraFigueiras Guzmán, AdolfoZapata Cachafeiro, Maruxa2024-02-122024-02-122023-03-20Rodríguez-Fernández, A., Vázquez-Cancela, O., Piñeiro-Lamas, M., Herdeiro, M. T., Figueiras, A., & Zapata-Cachafeiro, M. (2023). Magnitude and determinants of inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics in dentistry: a nation-wide study. Antimicrobial resistance and infection control, 12(1), 20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13756-023-01225-zhttp://hdl.handle.net/10347/32749Background Dentist play an important role in misuse of antibiotics. Identification of the dental activities linked to the misuse of antibiotics is important for improving dentists’ prescribing quality. The aim of the study was to quantify the magnitude of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing by dentists in Spain and identify the characteristics, knowledge and attitudes that influence prescribing quality. Material and methods We conducted a cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study on dentists in Spain, assessing prescribing quality (dependent variable) on the basis of their responses about the prescription of antibiotics in 14 clinical situations. As the independent variables, we assessed professional characteristics and attitudes (lack of knowledge, fear, complacency, scheduling problems, and economic benefit) measured on a Likert scale. Odds Ratios (OR) (95%CI) were calculated using logistic regression. Results A total of 878 participants were included in the analysis. Half of all dentists displayed inappropriate antibiotic prescribing habits in more than 28.6% (10/14) of the clinical situations posed (interquartile range 57–79%). Prescribing quality increased when resistance was perceived as a public health problem (OR 0.88, 95% CI: 0.79–0.97), and decreased in response to fear (OR 1.12, 95% CI:1.07–1.18) or the pursuit of economic benefit (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01–1.14). Having over 30 years’ experience (OR 4.58, 95% CI:1.80–12.48) and/or practising in the field of prosthodontics as opposed to endodontics (OR 2.65, 95% CI:1.26–5.71) were associated with worse prescribing quality. Conclusions Antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drugs in dentistry, and in many cases this prescription is inappropriate. Our findings shows that modifiable factors influence prescribing quality among dentists in Spain. These may be use for designing educational and training programmes for dentistseng© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holderhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/AntibioticDentistPrescribingKnowledgeAttitudesjournal article10.1186/s13756-023-01225-z2047-2994open access