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Influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of HALS (Hals und Antibiotika Leitlinien Strategien)
BACKGROUND: Pharyngitis due to Group A beta-hemolytic streptococci (GAS) is seen as the main indication for antibiotics for sore throat. In primary care settings prescription rates are much higher than the prevalence of GAS. Recommendations in international guidelines differ considerably. A German g...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10029262/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36941540 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-023-01987-w |
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author | Wächtler, Hannelore Kaduszkiewicz, Hanna Kuhnert, Oskar Malottki, Karolina Agata Maaß, Sonja Hedderich, Jürgen Wiese, Birgitt Donner-Banzhoff, Norbert Hansmann-Wiest, Julia |
author_facet | Wächtler, Hannelore Kaduszkiewicz, Hanna Kuhnert, Oskar Malottki, Karolina Agata Maaß, Sonja Hedderich, Jürgen Wiese, Birgitt Donner-Banzhoff, Norbert Hansmann-Wiest, Julia |
author_sort | Wächtler, Hannelore |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Pharyngitis due to Group A beta-hemolytic streptococci (GAS) is seen as the main indication for antibiotics for sore throat. In primary care settings prescription rates are much higher than the prevalence of GAS. Recommendations in international guidelines differ considerably. A German guideline suggested to consider antibiotics for patients with Centor or McIsaac scores ≥ 3, first choice being penicillin V for 7 days, and recommended analgesics for all. We investigated, if the implementation of this guideline lowers the antibiotic prescription rate, and if a rapid antigen detection strep-test (RADT) in patients with scores ≥ 3 lowers the rate further. METHODS: HALS was an open pragmatic parallel group three-arm cluster-randomized controlled trial. Primary care practices in Northern Germany were randomized into three groups: Guideline (GL-group), modified guideline with a RADT for scores ≥ 3 (GL-RADT-group) or usual care (UC-group). All practices were visited and instructed by the study team (outreach visits) and supplied with material according to their group. The practices were asked to recruit 11 consecutive patients ≥ 2 years with an acute sore throat and being at least moderately impaired. A study throat swab for GAS was taken in every patient. The antibiotic prescription rate at the first consultation was the primary outcome. RESULTS: From October 2010 to March 2012, 68 general practitioners in 61 practices recruited 520 patients, 516 could be analyzed for the primary endpoint. Antibiotic prescription rates did not differ between groups (p = 0.162) and were about three times higher than the GAS rate: GL-group 97/187 patients (52%; GAS = 16%), GL-RADT-group 74/172 (43%; GAS = 16%) and UC-group 68/157 (43%; GAS = 14%). In the GL-RADT-group 55% of patients had scores ≥ 3 compared to 35% in GL-group (p < 0.001). After adjustment, in the GL-RADT-group the OR was 0.23 for getting an antibiotic compared to the GL-group (p = 0.010), even though 35 of 90 patients with a negative Strep-test got an antibiotic in the GL-RADT-group. The prescription rates per practice covered the full range from 0 to 100% in all groups. CONCLUSION: The scores proposed in the implemented guideline seem inappropriate to lower antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat, but better adherence of practitioners to negative RADTs should lead to fewer prescriptions. TRIAL REGISTRATION: DRKS00013018, retrospectively registered 28.11.2017. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10029262 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-100292622023-03-22 Influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of HALS (Hals und Antibiotika Leitlinien Strategien) Wächtler, Hannelore Kaduszkiewicz, Hanna Kuhnert, Oskar Malottki, Karolina Agata Maaß, Sonja Hedderich, Jürgen Wiese, Birgitt Donner-Banzhoff, Norbert Hansmann-Wiest, Julia BMC Prim Care Research BACKGROUND: Pharyngitis due to Group A beta-hemolytic streptococci (GAS) is seen as the main indication for antibiotics for sore throat. In primary care settings prescription rates are much higher than the prevalence of GAS. Recommendations in international guidelines differ considerably. A German guideline suggested to consider antibiotics for patients with Centor or McIsaac scores ≥ 3, first choice being penicillin V for 7 days, and recommended analgesics for all. We investigated, if the implementation of this guideline lowers the antibiotic prescription rate, and if a rapid antigen detection strep-test (RADT) in patients with scores ≥ 3 lowers the rate further. METHODS: HALS was an open pragmatic parallel group three-arm cluster-randomized controlled trial. Primary care practices in Northern Germany were randomized into three groups: Guideline (GL-group), modified guideline with a RADT for scores ≥ 3 (GL-RADT-group) or usual care (UC-group). All practices were visited and instructed by the study team (outreach visits) and supplied with material according to their group. The practices were asked to recruit 11 consecutive patients ≥ 2 years with an acute sore throat and being at least moderately impaired. A study throat swab for GAS was taken in every patient. The antibiotic prescription rate at the first consultation was the primary outcome. RESULTS: From October 2010 to March 2012, 68 general practitioners in 61 practices recruited 520 patients, 516 could be analyzed for the primary endpoint. Antibiotic prescription rates did not differ between groups (p = 0.162) and were about three times higher than the GAS rate: GL-group 97/187 patients (52%; GAS = 16%), GL-RADT-group 74/172 (43%; GAS = 16%) and UC-group 68/157 (43%; GAS = 14%). In the GL-RADT-group 55% of patients had scores ≥ 3 compared to 35% in GL-group (p < 0.001). After adjustment, in the GL-RADT-group the OR was 0.23 for getting an antibiotic compared to the GL-group (p = 0.010), even though 35 of 90 patients with a negative Strep-test got an antibiotic in the GL-RADT-group. The prescription rates per practice covered the full range from 0 to 100% in all groups. CONCLUSION: The scores proposed in the implemented guideline seem inappropriate to lower antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat, but better adherence of practitioners to negative RADTs should lead to fewer prescriptions. TRIAL REGISTRATION: DRKS00013018, retrospectively registered 28.11.2017. BioMed Central 2023-03-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10029262/ /pubmed/36941540 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-023-01987-w Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Wächtler, Hannelore Kaduszkiewicz, Hanna Kuhnert, Oskar Malottki, Karolina Agata Maaß, Sonja Hedderich, Jürgen Wiese, Birgitt Donner-Banzhoff, Norbert Hansmann-Wiest, Julia Influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of HALS (Hals und Antibiotika Leitlinien Strategien) |
title | Influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of HALS (Hals und Antibiotika Leitlinien Strategien) |
title_full | Influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of HALS (Hals und Antibiotika Leitlinien Strategien) |
title_fullStr | Influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of HALS (Hals und Antibiotika Leitlinien Strategien) |
title_full_unstemmed | Influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of HALS (Hals und Antibiotika Leitlinien Strategien) |
title_short | Influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of HALS (Hals und Antibiotika Leitlinien Strategien) |
title_sort | influence of a guideline or an additional rapid strep test on antibiotic prescriptions for sore throat: the cluster randomized controlled trial of hals (hals und antibiotika leitlinien strategien) |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10029262/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36941540 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-023-01987-w |
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