Every year, four million Dutch people take at least one course of antibiotics. This statistic comes from the latest figures released by the Foundation for Pharmaceutical Key Figures (SFK), a trusted authority on medication trends in the Netherlands.
Antibiotics rank as the most widely distributed drug reimbursed by the basic health insurance package. In second place are prescription NSAIDs, used by about three million people annually, followed by antacids with roughly 2.8 million users.
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Overregistration challenges
While usage numbers are substantial, the SFK notes that figures for key drug groups—including antibiotics, NSAIDs, sex steroids, skin preparations with corticosteroids, and ophthalmic agents—have remained nearly constant since 2020.
The SFK acknowledges some overregistration in its data, as it lacks personal identifiers to link prescriptions from multiple pharmacies to the same individual. Each instance is counted as a unique user.
Researchers are now exploring strategies to address and prevent this over-registration for more accurate insights.
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