Table 2 Elaboration on the inclusion and exclusion criteria

Population

Symptomatic and asymptomatic patients (healthy people)

Hospitalised patients with infections >48 h after admission

Increased risk of colonisation with drug-resistant bacteria from the hospital environment

Hospitalised patients with a community infection (<48 h from admission)

Patients with post-surgery infections

Burn-associated infections

Sample of health-care workers, medical or nursing students with medical rotations

ICU patients referred from hospital wards or patients with central-line-associated bloodstream infections

High probability that these patients are infected with resistant bacteria

Patients with device-related infections (catheter, implants, dialysis-associated infections or ventilation-associated infections)

Devices are more prone to infection with resistant bacteria

Patients with persistent diseases (tuberculosis, H. pylori, syphilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Mycobacterium leprae or Salmonella typhi)

Asymptomatic infections that remains undetected for a long duration; these require prolonged antibiotic treatments and it is considered treatment failure if the bacterium is isolated after treatment

>50% of the sample are immunocompromised patients

Infections due to opportunistic bacteria that normally do not cause infections

Patients with cystic fibrosis or bronchiectasis and cancer patients

Comorbidities that increase the risk of infection

Intervention

Any antibiotic exposure for any infection <14 days (prospective or retrospective)

Long-term antibiotic treatment >2 continuous weeks

Higher probability of killing susceptible organisms and increased risk of carriage of resistant isolates

Control/comparator

Patients without antibiotic exposure

Patients with a different antibiotic exposure, dose, frequency or route of administration

If there are no before and after measurements of resistance

Outcome

Prevalence of resistance in exposed and unexposed patients

If there are no before and after measurements of resistance

Duplicate isolate reporting

Time

Time between antibiotic exposure and isolation of resistant organisms

Studies were excluded if there were no data available on the last known antibiotic exposure

Setting

Primary care

General practices

Outpatient clinics

Paediatric clinics

Emergency department