We found evidence that CRP testing, shared decision making, and procalcitonin-guided management reduce antibiotic prescribing for patients with ARIs in primary care. These interventions may therefore reduce overall antibiotic consumption and consequently antibiotic resistance. There do not appear to be negative effects of these interventions on the outcomes of patient satisfaction and reconsultation, although there was limited measurement of these outcomes in the trials. This should be rectified in future trials.We could gather no information about the costs of management, and this along with the paucity of measurements meant that it was difficult to weigh the benefits and costs of implementing these interventions in practice.Most of this research was undertaken in high-income countries, and it may not generalise to other settings. The quality of evidence for the interventions of educational materials and tools for patients and clinicians was either low or very low, which prevented us from drawing any conclusions. High-quality trials are needed to further investigate these interventions.
Antibiotics are prescribed for ARIs at rates 4-9 times as high as those recommended by Therapeutic Guidelines. Our data provide the basis for setting absolute targets for reducing antibiotic prescribing in Australian general practice.
BackgroundExcessive use of antibiotics is worldwide the most important reason for development of antimicrobial resistance. As antibiotic resistance may spread across borders, high prevalence countries may serve as a source of bacterial resistance for countries with a low prevalence. Therefore, bacterial resistance is an important issue with a potential serious impact on all countries. Initiatives have been taken to improve the quality of antibiotic prescribing in primary care, but only few studies have been designed to determine the effectiveness of multifaceted strategies across countries with different practice setting. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of a multifaceted intervention targeting general practitioners (GPs) and patients in six countries with different health organization and different prevalence of antibiotic resistance.MethodsGPs from two Nordic countries, two Baltic Countries and two Hispano-American countries registered patients with respiratory tract infections (RTIs) in 2008 and 2009. After first registration they received individual prescriber feedback and they were offered an intervention programme that included training courses, clinical guidelines, posters for waiting rooms, patient brochures and access to point of care tests (Strep A and C-Reactive Protein). Antibiotic prescribing rates were compared before and after the intervention.ResultsA total of 440 GPs registered 47011 consultations; 24436 before the intervention (2008) and 22575 after the intervention (2009). After the intervention, the GPs significantly reduced the percentage of consultations resulting in an antibiotic prescription. In patients with lower RTI the GPs in Lithuania reduced the prescribing rate by 42%, in Russia by 25%, in Spain by 25%, and in Argentina by 9%. In patients with upper RTIs, the corresponding reductions in the antibiotic prescribing rates were in Lithania 20%, in Russia 15%, in Spain 9%, and in Argentina 5%.ConclusionA multifaceted intervention programme targeting GPs and patients and focusing on improving diagnostic procedures in patients with RTIs may lead to a marked reduction in antibiotic prescribing. The pragmatic before-after design used may suffer from some limitations and the reduction in antibiotic prescribing could be influenced by factors not related to the intervention.
Numerous opportunities are available in primary care for alleviating the crisis of increasing antibiotic resistance. Preventing patients from developing an acute respiratory infection (ARI) will obviate any need for antibiotic use downstream. Hygiene measures such as physical barriers and hand hygiene, and possibly vaccination and exercise, may be effective. Also, a large range of complementary and alternative medicines (e.g. zinc, vitamin C and probiotics) are proposed for preventing and treating ARIs, but evidence for efficacy is scarce.General practitioners’ (GPs) attitudes towards antibiotic prescribing are a major factor in the prescribing for ARIs. Professional interventions with educational components are effective, although they have modest effects, and are expensive. GPs’ perceptions – that mistakenly assume as a default that patients want antibiotics for their ARIs – are often wrong. Shared decision making might be a solution, as it enables clinician and patient to participate jointly in making a health decision, having discussed the options together with the evidence for their harms as well as benefits.Furthermore, GPs’ diagnostic uncertainty – often leading to an antibiotic prescription “just in case” – might be addressed by exploiting strategies such as safety-netting, e.g., establishing with the patient a priori clearly defined actions to take if the course of the illness deviates from the expected.None of these strategies or interventions on their own will greatly improve the use of antibiotics for ARIs. However, used in concert, combinations are likely to enable clinicians and health care systems to implement the strategies that will reduce antimicrobial resistance in the future.
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