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

Not Applicable
Completed
Conditions
Antibiotic Prescription
Interventions
Other: Charter & patient information leaflets
Registration Number
NCT04562571
Lead Sponsor
Central Hospital, Nancy, France
Brief Summary

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.

Detailed 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.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
349
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

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
PARALLEL
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
Charter & patient information leafletsCharter & patient information leafletsA 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
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Impact of a public commitment charter associated with patient information leaflets on antibiotic's prescription2 years

prescription rate by all included GPs of all systemic antibiotics (J01 code according to the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical - ATC - 2017 classification) between the "before" (2017-2018) and "after" (2018-2019) period using an auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Adherence of GPs regarding the intervention: display of the public commitment charter1 years

checking visually, without the GP being informed, during the opening hours of the practice, that the charter is effectively displayed in the waiting room at month 12

Adherence of GPs regarding the intervention: use patient information leaflets1 years

Estimating the number of patient information leaflets distributed to patients by GPs, from the number of pads ordered from the Regional Health Insurance

Impact of the intervention on the seasonal variation of both total antibiotic use and quinolones' use2 years

ratio of the \[number of prescriptions of all antibiotics / quinolones during the cold-weather season (January-March and October-December)\] / \[number of prescriptions of all antibiotics / quinolones during the hot-weather season (April-September)\] - 1 x 100 Title: Broad-spectrum antibiotics' prescriptions between the "before" and "after" period using ANOVA models

Impact of the public commitment charter associated with patient information leaflets on broad-spectrum antibiotics' prescriptions2 years

prescription rates by included GPs of amoxicillin-clavulanate (J01CR02), cephalosporins (J01DD) and fluoroquinolones (J01MA) for each eligible GP between the "before" and "after" period using an auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model

Acceptability of the intervention by GPs1 years

semi-structured individual interviews with a randomised sample of GPs from the intervention group and focus groups or individual interviews with patients of the included GPs, in order to assess their perceptions regarding the intervention

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Université de Lorraine

🇫🇷

Nancy, Grand Est, France

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