Impact of a Communication Toolkit on Antibiotic Prescribed by General Practitioners: a Randomised Trial

Central Hospital, Nancy, France

Status: Completed

Conditions: Antibiotic Prescription

Treatments: Other: Charter & patient information leaflets

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04562571

201701939

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is a pragmatic, randomised, controlled, before-after interventional study conducted in one region in France in primary care. The GPs in the intervention group will receive a public commitment charter, a non prescription pad and a patient information leaflet to be used when antibiotics are prescribed, while the control group will be not aware of the intervention.

Full description

Antimicrobial resistance is a major public health threat and the overuse of antibiotics contributes to its development.

In France, outpatient antibiotic use remains above the European average. Ninety percent of antibiotics are prescribed to outpatients and 70% of these are prescribed by general practitioners.

Enrollment: 349 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• working in the Lorraine region in France
• prescribing more than 25 antibiotic items per 100 patients without a chronic illness, aged 16 to 65 years
• proportion of patients treated with critical antibiotics exceeding 27% (among patients treated with antibiotics)

Exclusion criteria

• practicing exclusively alternative medicine, such as homeopathy or acupuncture
• GPs reaching the retirement age in the two years following the beginning of the intervention or who were not working two years before
• GPs who had already displayed a commitment charter promoting antibiotic stewardship in their practice

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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349 participants in 2 patient groups

Charter & patient information leaflets

Experimental group

Description:

A public commitment charter promoting antibiotic stewardship, signed by the general practitioner (GP) and displayed in the practice waiting room; a non-prescription pad, to be distributed to patients when an antibiotic is not needed; and a patient information leaflet to be used when antibiotics were prescribed

Treatment:

Other: Charter & patient information leaflets

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

No intervention, eligible general practitioners randomised in the control group not informed of the intervention