In What Clinical Situation Is It Most Appropriate to Use

question 15

Multiple Choice

In what clinical situation is it most appropriate to use a broad-spectrum antimicrobial?

• A) In an example of a viral pediatric otitis media (middle ear) infection. We can't properly test for the specific drug that would best eliminate the infection due to its location, so we use a broad-spectrum drug instead.
• B) In a case of viral meningitis. The infection spreads so quickly that we must treat it with an antibacterial drug as quickly as possible. We don't have time to determine which drug will work best, because the patient will die in the meantime.
• C) In a case of bacterial meningitis. The infection spreads so quickly that we must treat it with an antibacterial drug as quickly as possible. We don't have time to determine which drug will work best, because the patient will die in the meantime.
• D) In a case of Staphylococcus aureus skin infection. Since this microbe can be resistant to several types of drugs, we want to use one that has the broadest spectrum possible to treat this microbe-specific infection.
• E) There are no appropriate situations for using broad-spectrum antibiotics, because they almost always lead to resistance. It is much better to use a narrow-spectrum medication.

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Definitions:

P < .05

A statistical notation indicating that the probability of the observed results occurring by chance is less than 5%.

Effect Size

A quantitative measure of the strength of a phenomenon, often used to determine the practical significance of research findings.

Cohen

Refers to statistical measures developed by Jacob Cohen to quantify the effect size or the strength of an observed phenomenon, such as Cohen's d.

Cohen's D

A gauge for quantifying the size of impact by showing the normalized discrepancy between two mean values.