About the project
Overuse of antibiotics for viral infections or for self-healing infections represent a global health problem because it promotes the development of antibiotic resistance. This project mapped the GPs’ baseline prescribing of antibiotics for acute respiratory infections. The effect of an educational intervention to improve the quality of prescribing was then evaluated. Eighty educational groups in general practice in the southern Norway were recruited to an educational intervention in which they were randomized to one of two courses (better use of antibiotics for acute respiratory infections, or more appropriate drug prescribing for the elderly) Participants in the first course were controls of the latter - and vice versa. A complex intervention was developed consisting of visits from specially trained GP specialists acting as Peer academic detailers in the education groups, and feedback on the individual prescribing practices before. Outcome measures for evaluation are the prescription rates of antibiotics, and antibiotic distribution (broad spectrum vs. narrow spectrum) for the different diagnoses one year before compared to one year after the intervention.
Outcomes
An article that analyses the baseline data from the year before the intervention was published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy in July 2011.
Quality assurance, processing and analysis of before-after data is in progress.
The project is part of the Rx-PAD project
Financing
- The Norwegian Medical Association
- Ministry of Health Care services
- The Norwegian research council
Cooperation
This project is one arm in the joint project Prescription Peer Academic Detailing (Rx-PAD) study, in which the projects of Sture Rognstad and Sigurd Høie are included.
- The antibiotic centre for primary care
- The Norwegian Prescription database
Start - end
2008-2013