Many children with pink eye are prescribed antibiotics by doctors but the antibiotics are typically not necessary, according to experts. About seven out of 10 health care visits involving children with acute infectious conjunctivitis, or pink eye, ended with doctors prescribing a topical antibiotic, researchers reported in a new study. The researchers collected data from 2021 from a commercial claims and encounter database.
Doctor’s offices gave antibiotics the most, to 72 percent of patients, compared to ERs at 57 percent, and eye clinics at 34 percent. Limitations of the paper, which was published by JAMA Ophthalmology, included some instances of incomplete clinical data. “Given that antibiotics may not be associated with improved outcomes or change in subsequent health care use and are associated with adverse effects and antibiotic resistance, efforts to reduce overtreatment of acute infectious conjunctivitis are warranted,” the researchers said.
Dr. Andrew Doan, an eye doctor who was not involved in the research, noted that most cases of pink eye are caused by viruses. “There are no effective treatments for viral conjunctivitis and antibiotics are ineffective,” Dr.
Doan told The Epoch Times in an email. Pink eye, which can also be caused by bacteria and allergies, manifests with symptoms such as itchiness and redness in the eyes. The American Academy of Ophthalmology says that in cases caused by viruses, people’s immune systems fight the viruses and that the p.
