Antimicrobial use in patients at the end of life in an Australian hospital.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance is increasing and there is an urgent international imperative to optimise use within hospitals. Antibiotic use at the end of life is frequent in the hospital setting, but data on use in Australian hospitals in this context is limited, and optimisation is complicated by clinical/diagnostic, ethical and humanistic considerations. As yet there is little data available on baseline use in hospital end of life settings, an empirical gap we sought to begin to fill here.