An increasing variety of indicators of antimicrobial usage has become available in human and veterinary medicine, with no consensus on the most appropriate indicators to be used. The objective of this review is therefore to provide guidance on the selection of indicators, intended for those aiming to quantify antimicrobial usage based on sales, deliveries or reimbursement data. Depending on the study objective, different requirements apply to antimicrobial usage quantification in terms of resolution, comprehensiveness, stability over time, ability to assess exposure and comparability. If the aim is to monitor antimicrobial usage trends, it is crucial to use a robust quantification system that allows stability over time in terms of required data and provided output; to compare usage between different species or countries, comparability must be ensured between the different populations. If data are used for benchmarking, the system comprehensiveness is particularly crucial, while data collected to study the association between usage and resistance should express the exposure level and duration as a measurement of the exerted selection pressure. Antimicrobial usage is generally described as the number of technical units consumed normalized by the population at risk of being treated in a defined period. The technical units vary from number of packages to number of individuals treated daily by adding different levels of complexity such as daily dose or weight at treatment. These technical units are then related to a description of the population at risk, based either on biomass or number of individuals. Conventions and assumptions are needed for all of these calculation steps. However, there is a clear lack of standardization, resulting in poor transparency and comparability. By combining study requirements with available approaches to quantify antimicrobial usage, we provide suggestions on the most appropriate indicators and data sources to be used for a given study objective.

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