PEDIATRICS Vol. 71 No. 2 February 1983, pp. 295
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Italian Surgeons Can Be Intimidated by Facts

GIORGIO LONGO 1, GIORGIO SIMON 1, GIORGIO TAMBURLINI 1, and MARCO VIOLINO 1

1 Departement of Pediatrics, University of Trieste-Children Hospital "Burlo Garofolo" via dell'Istria 65, Trieste, Italy

To the Editor.—

In 1977 at the Children Hospital of Trieste we evaluated the use of antibiotics in the hospital wards. The most impressive finding was the common use of antibiotics for routine prophylaxis before surgical interventions.1

This tendency was recognizable in all surgical wards (stomatology, otorhinolaryngology, and general surgery) and its quantitative aspects were very similar to those reported by Kesler et al.2 The problem of inappropriate use of antibiotics, especially in the surgical wards, has been recognized as a major concern in hospital care and many remedies have been proposed and tested: use of predetermined therapeutic protocols, medical audit on antibiotic usage, mandatory written requests for certain antibiotics, introduction of automatic "stop order," mandatory references to literature before prescribing, etc.3