Over the last two decades, antibiotic overuse and resistance have become serious threats. Following an outbreak of Clostridium difficile in 2004, the Minister of Health and Social Services asked the Conseil du médicament, now INESSS, to work with experts in order to develop guidelines aimed at improving prescription practices. Some 30,000 printed copies of the guides were distributed to Québec’s physicians and pharmacists, and an additional 193,500 copies were downloaded online. The success of this mass outreach initiative was described in a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases by Dr. Karl Weiss, a microbiologist and infectiologist at Université de Montréal and Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont.

First published in January 2005, the first series of clinical guides on antibiotic treatment were revised and updated in fall 2009. These guides outline conditions primarily, but not exclusively, encountered in primary care medicine, including otitis, urinary tract infection, bronchitis, sinusitis and pneumonia. During the first year that the guidelines were distributed, the number of antibiotic prescriptions issued to outpatients in Québec decreased by 4.2%. In the other Canadian provinces, the number of such prescriptions increased by 6.5% over the same period.

INESSS is now updating the second series of clinical guides on antibiotic treatment, which outlines conditions primarily, but not exclusively, encountered in health care institutions. The first three guides in the series will be distributed in fall 2011, together with a new guide on bacterial resistance.

The first and second series are available online on our website.