Incidence of remote consultation on general practitioners' antibiotic prescriptions in 2021: a French observational study.
retrospective_cohort · Level III
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38199798.
- Also identified by DOI 10.3399/BJGPO.2023.0196 and PMC identifier 11300969.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
In patients with infectious diseases, remote consultation (RC) may be questionable compared with face-to-face office consultation (OC), not only because of the lack of physical examination but also because of the risk of overprescribing antibiotics (ATBs). To analyse ATB prescription in OC versus RC in a sample of French GPs. This is a retrospective observational cohort study in general practice in 2021. Anonymised data were collected from voluntary GPs. The influence of the mode of consultation on ATB prescription was analysed using a χ² test. A secondary multivariate analysis investigated the factors influencing the use of OC or RC in patients who received at least one ATB. In total, 35 503 consultations with an identifiable rating were included, corresponding to seven doctors' activities, practising with five locums and three residents. ATBs were prescribed in 10.41% of RCs and 6.77% of OCs (<i>P</i><0.01). RC was associated with more frequent prescription of ATBs for respiratory and ear, nose, and throat (ENT) viral infections and urinary tract infections. For patients aged 20-40 years, ATB prescription was more associated with RC. RC is associated with a more frequent ATB prescription than OC, mostly for patients aged 20-40 years, who are most likely to use new technologies; and for urinary tract infections or respiratory and ENT viral infections. Further studies on RC outcomes should be conducted to better analyse the impact of RC on the prescribing of ATBs.