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Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are a common problem in young women. The aim of this study was to describe the pattern of antibiotic prescribing to young women presenting with new UTIs and to investigate the proportion who required further treatment if prescribed antibiotics. A secondary aim was to investigate whether the likelihood of treatment failure varied between different antibiotics and, in the case of trimethoprim (the antibiotic most frequently prescribed for UTIs) between prescriptions of different duration. The study included all women aged 15–44 years registered on the UK General Practice Research Database. All diagnoses of UTI or cystitis with an associated prescription for an antibiotic were identified. A further prescription of an antibiotic within 28 days was taken to indicate failure of the initial treatment. Overall, 14% of 75045 newly treated patients with UTI received a second antibiotic within 28 days …