Analysing the trend over time of antibiotic consumption in the community: a tutorial on the detection of common change-points

Abstract

Objectives: This tutorial describes and illustrates statistical methods to detect time trends possibly including abrupt changes (referred to as change-points) in the consumption of antibiotics in the community. Methods: For the period 1997-2017, data on consumption of antibacterials for systemic use (ATC group J01) in the community, aggregated at the level of the active substance, were collected using the WHO ATC/DDD methodology and expressed in DDD (ATC/DDD index 2019) per 1000 inhabitants per day. Trends over time and presence of common change-points were studied through a set of non-linear mixed models. Results: After a thorough description of the set of models used to assess the time trend and presence of common change-points herein, the methodology was applied to the consumption of antibacterials for systemic use (ATC J01) in 25 EU/European Economic Area (EEA) countries. The best fit was obtained for a model including two change-points: one in the first quarter of 2004 and one in the last quarter of 2008. Conclusions: Allowing for the inclusion of common change-points improved model fit. Individual countries investigating changes in their antibiotic consumption pattern can use this tutorial to analyse their country data.