ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Pharmacoepidemiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1593910
Urinary tract infections in women in primary care in Catalonia, Spain: A populationbased observational cohort study. Authors
Provisionally accepted
Silvia Fernández-García1,2,3*
Ana Moragas Moreno4,5,6
Maria Giner-Soriano1,3Rosa Morros1,3,5,7Dan Ouchi1,3Ana García-Sangenís1,5,8
Carl Llor1,5,9- 1Fundació Institut Universitari per a la recerca a l'Atenció Primària de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina, Barcelona, Spain
- 2University of Girona, Girona, Catalonia, Spain
- 3Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
- 4Centre d'Atenció Primària Jaume I, Tarragona, Catalan Health Institute (ICS), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
- 5CIBER en Enfermedades Infecciosas Instituto Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
- 6University of Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain
- 7Clinical Research Unit Fundació Institut Universitari per a la Recerca a l’Atenció Primària de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina, Barcelona, Spanish Clinical Research Network ISCIII (SCReN), Barcelona, Spain
- 8Spanish Clinical Research Network ISCIII (SCReN), Barcelona, Balearic Islands, Spain
- 9Research Unit for General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
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Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are a frequent consultation in primary care and are usually treated with empirical antibiotics. Women suffer more from UTIs than men, and therefore more likely to be treated with antibiotics.The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiology of UTIs in women in Catalonia, Spain. We conducted a population-based observational cohort study that included women patients diagnosed with UTI and recurrent UTI within our SIDIAP and CMBD database during the period from 2012 to 2021. UTI diagnoses were grouped into two main groups, cystitis and pyelonephritis, and patients recorded as having 2 or more episodes of UTI within the year following the first recorded UTI were considered to have recurrent UTI. An initial population of 962,998 women with a record of at least one episode of UTI was obtained, the most commonly reported infection was cystitis, which was mostly treated with fosfomycin in line with local guidelines. In contrast, pyelonephritis was treated with penicillins. There were 3.7% recurrent UTIs in the sample. This is a large-scale study of UTI in women in primary care, providing a description of women with a diagnosis of UTI in Catalonia. It also provides and valuable information on the management and treatment of this illness carried out during the routine clinical practice of medical professionals.
Keywords: Anti-Bacterial Agents, diagnosis, Electronic Health Records, Primary Health Care, Urinary tract infection, Women
Received: 14 Mar 2025; Accepted: 03 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fernández-García, Moragas Moreno, Giner-Soriano, Morros, Ouchi, García-Sangenís and Llor. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Silvia Fernández-García, Fundació Institut Universitari per a la recerca a l'Atenció Primària de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina, Barcelona, Spain
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