ReviewJAC-antimicrobial resistance2026
Mapping antibiotic treatment failure definitions and criteria in ambulatory care: a systematic literature review.
Review in JAC-antimicrobial resistance, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Most antibiotic prescriptions occur in ambulatory care, making it a key setting for evaluating treatment outcomes. However, there is no consensus on how antibiotic treatment failure (ATF) is defined. Objectives: To systematically map definitions and criteria used to define ATF among patients with common bacterial infections in ambulatory care. Methods: A systematic search was conducted in MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection for studies published from 1 January 1996 to 7 February 2025, and reported following PRISMA guidelines. Eligible studies included patients of any age with common infections treated in ambulatory care. ATF definitions and criteria were extracted, coded, and analysed using inductive and deductive content analysis. Risk of bias was assessed with the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, AXIS, and Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool 2.0 (PROSPERO: CRD42023484991). Results: Of 8979 records, 194 studies were included, mostly purely outpatient (56%), retrospective cohort (53%), and from high-income countries (84%); 65% had low-risk of bias. Terminology for ATF varied. Four main criteria were identified: 'Prescription Change' (78%), 'Clinical Condition' (54%), 'Escalation of Care' (41%), and 'Mortality' (9%), encompassing 25 unique sub-criteria. One complementary criterion, 'Diagnostic Tests' also emerged. ATF follow-up time windows differed by indication, shorter for skin, ear, and respiratory infections and longer for genitourinary or mixed infections. Limitations include coding subjectivity and ambiguous definitions. Conclusion: ATF is inconsistently defined, timed, and operationalized. Our review maps common criteria and sub-criteria to support future consensus-building efforts aiming for standardization and improved study comparability.
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.