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Invited Commentary
July 2015

Changing Clinicians’ Behavior: To Order or Not to Order a Urine Culture

Author Affiliations
  • 1Section of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut
JAMA Intern Med. 2015;175(7):1127-1129. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.1888

Asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) is one of the most common reasons for inappropriate antimicrobial use.1 Despite the recommendation for decades that patients with indwelling urinary catheters should not be screened for ASB or treated with antimicrobial therapy, this practice is still commonplace.2 In an effort to have physicians and patients work collaboratively to reduce unnecessary antimicrobial prescriptions, the first evidence-based recommendation made by the Infectious Diseases Society of America in conjunction with the American Board of Internal Medicine in the Choosing Wisely campaign is “Don’t treat asymptomatic bacteriuria with antibiotics.”3

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