Returned Rate and Changed Patterns of Systemic Antibiotic Use in Ambulatory Care in Hungary after the Pandemic—A Longitudinal Ecological Study

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the epidemiology of infectious diseases and changed the operation of health care systems and health care seeking behavior. Our study aimed to analyze the utilization of systemic antibiotics in ambulatory care in Hungary after the COVID-19 pandemic and compare it to the period before COVID. We defined three periods (24 months each): Before COVID, COVID, and After COVID. Monthly trends in systemic antibiotic (J01) use were calculated using the WHO ATC-DDD index and expressed as DDD/1000 inhabitants/day (DID) and number of exposed patients per active agent. The data were further categorized by the WHO AWaRe classification. In the After COVID period, we detected almost the same (11.61 vs. 11.11 DID) mean monthly use of systemic antibiotics in ambulatory care compared to the Before COVID period. We observed a decrease in the seasonality index in the After COVID period (46.86% vs. 39.86%). In the After COVID period, the use of cephalosporins and quinolones decreased significantly, while in the case of macrolides, a significant increase was observed compared to the Before COVID period, with excessive azithromycin use (66,869 vs. 97,367 exposed patients). This study demonstrated significant changes in the pattern of ambulatory care antibiotic use in Hungary.