Change Doctors' Prescribing Habits For Unneeded Antibiotics

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Initiative reduces unneeded antibiotics slightly Wed Jan 23, 8:28 PM

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An effort to change doctors' prescribing

habits for antibiotics and to educate parents of small children about

the proper use of antibiotics was only moderately successful at

curbing antibiotic use, Boston researchers report.

 

Prescribing antibiotics when they're not really needed, and not

taking them properly, has been blamed for the emergence of microbes

that are resistant to antibiotics. Dr. Jonathan A. Finkelstein at

Harvard Medical School and colleagues conducted a program in 16

Massachusetts communities between 1988 and 2003 to reduce the

unnecessary dispensing of antibiotics.

 

As described in the journal Pediatrics, strategies implemented among

doctors included guideline education, small-group education with

frequent updates and feedback about their prescribing patterns.

Parents also received educational materials by mail, in doctors'

offices, at pharmacies and in childcare settings.

 

Finkelstein's team measured changes in antibiotic prescribing rates

among three groups of children: 3 to 24 months, 24 to 48 months, and

48 to 72 months.

 

By the end of the study, the intervention had not changed the rate of

antibiotic use in the youngest group, but for children between 24 and

48 months, the rates decreased by 4.2 percent and for the oldest

children, the rates decreased by 6.7 percent.

 

While this was going on, there was also a substantial decline in

antibiotic prescribing generally, however.

 

" A sustained, multifaceted, community-level intervention was only

modestly successful at decreasing overall antibiotic use beyond

substantial secular trends, " Finkelstein's group concludes.

 

SOURCE: Pediatrics, January 2008.