Since the start of out-of-hours (OOH) primary care clinics, the number of patient consultations has been increasing. Triage plays an important role in patient selection for a consultation, and in ...providing reassurance and self-management advice.
We aimed to investigate whether the smartphone application "Should I see a doctor?" (in Dutch:"moet ik naar de dokter?") could guide patients in appropriate consultation at OOH clinics by focusing on four topics: 1) app usage, 2) user satisfaction, 3) whether the app provides the correct advice, and 4) whether users intend to follow the advice.
A prospective, cross-sectional study amongst app users in a routine primary care setting.
The app is a self-triage tool for acute primary care. A built-in questionnaire asked users about the app's clarity, their satisfaction and whether they intended to follow the app's advice (n = 4456). A convenience sample of users was phoned by a triage nurse (reference standard) to evaluate whether the app's advice corresponded with the outcome of the triage call (n = 126). Suggestions of phoned participants were listed.
The app was used by patients of all ages, also by parents for their children, and mostly for abdominal pain, skin disorders and cough. 58% of users received the advice to contact the clinic, 34% a self-care advice and 8% to wait-and-see. 65% of users intended to follow the app's advice. The app was rated as 'neutral' to 'very clear' by 87%, and 89% were 'neutral' to 'very satisfied'. In 81% of participants the app's advice corresponded to the triage call outcome, with sensitivity, specificity, positive- and negative predictive values of 84%, 74%, 88% and 67%, respectively.
The app "Should I see a doctor?" could be a valuable tool to guide patients in contacting the OOH primary care clinic for acute care. To further improve the app's safety and efficiency, triaging multiple symptoms should be facilitated, and more information should be provided to patients receiving a wait-and-see advice.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Primary care has a crucial role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic as the first point of patient care and gatekeeper to secondary care. Qualitative studies exploring the experiences of healthcare ...professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic have mainly focused on secondary care.
To gain an understanding of the experiences of European primary care professionals (PCPs) working during the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
An exploratory qualitative study, using semi-structured interviews in primary care in England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Greece, and Sweden, between April and July 2020.
Interviews were audiorecorded, transcribed, and analysed using a combination of inductive and deductive thematic analysis techniques.
Eighty interviews were conducted with PCPs. PCPs had to make their own decisions on how to rapidly transform services in relation to COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 care. Despite being overwhelmed with guidance, they often lacked access to practical training. Consequently, PCPs turned to their colleagues for moral support and information to try to quickly adjust to new ways of working, including remote care, and to deal with uncertainty.
PCPs rapidly transformed primary care delivery despite a number of challenges. Representation of primary care at policy level and engagement with local primary care champions are needed to facilitate easy and coordinated access to practical information on how to adapt services, ongoing training, and access to appropriate mental health support services for PCPs. Preservation of autonomy and responsiveness of primary care are critical to preserve the ability for rapid transformation in any future crisis of care delivery.
Objectives
Countries generally present their overall use of antibiotics as an indicator of antibiotic prescribing quality. Additional insight is urgently needed for targeted improvement ...recommendations: first, data on specific clinical indications for which antibiotics are used, and second, on distinguishing whether changes in patient consultation or changes in physician prescribing drive changing antibiotic use for particular indications. The aim of this study was to describe the antibiotic management of infectious diseases in the clinical context, by analysing prescribing by physicians and patient consultation incidences per indication over time.
Methods
A database with all contact data for infectious diseases from 45 primary care practices in the Netherlands (2007–10) was used. Consultation incidences, prescribing rates and choice of antibiotic were analysed per International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) chapter and relevant ICPC codes.
Results
Antibiotics were prescribed in ∼25% of infectious disease episodes, mainly respiratory infections, urinary infections and ear and skin infections. Overall, this resulted in 300 prescribed courses of antibiotics per 1000 patient–years. Given a stable prescription rate, a 19% increase in the number of consultations explained the increased antibiotic prescribing for urinary tract infections. Given a stable consultation incidence, an 8% reduction in prescribing rate explained the decreased antibiotic prescribing for respiratory tract infections. Macrolides were predominantly prescribed for respiratory disease (∼66%), amoxicillin/clavulanate for respiratory disease (∼42%) and urinary illness (∼25%), and fluoroquinolones for urinary and genital indications.
Conclusions
Insight into the reasons for the decreased prescribing for respiratory tract infections and the increased prescribing for urinary tract infections was provided by a detailed analysis of incidences and prescribing rates. For respiratory disease, the second- and third-choice antibiotics were overused. Complete data on infectious disease management, with respect to patient and physician behaviour, are crucial for understanding changes in antibiotic use, and in defining strategies to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use.
Abstract
Background
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) surveillance is heavily dependent on the influenza-like illness (ILI) case definition from the World Health Organization (WHO). Because ILI ...includes fever in its syndromic case definition, its ability to accurately identify acute respiratory tract infections (ARTI) caused by RSV in older adults is uncertain.
Methods
The accuracy of the WHO ILI and a modified ILI (requiring only self-reported fever) case definitions in identifying patients with PCR-confirmed RSV-ARTI was evaluated in community-dwelling older adults (≥60 years) from the prospective European RESCEU cohort study.
Results
Among 1040 participants, 750 ARTI episodes were analyzed including 36 confirmed RSV-ARTI. Due to a general lack of fever, sensitivity for RSV-ARTI was 33% for modified ILI and 11% for ILI. The area under the curve for both ILI definitions was 0.52 indicating poor discrimination for RSV. RSV-ARTI could not be distinguished from all other ARTI based on clinical symptoms.
Conclusions
The use of ILI underestimated the occurrence of RSV-ARTI in community-dwelling older adults up to 9-fold (11% sensitivity). Because worldwide RSV surveillance depends largely on ILI, there is an urgent need for a better approach to measure the occurrence of RSV disease and the impact of future RSV vaccine introduction.
Clinical Trials Registration. NCT03621930.
Numerous studies suggest overprescribing of antibiotics for respiratory tract indications (RTIs), without really authenticating inappropriate prescription; the strict criteria of guideline ...recommendations were not taken into account as information on specific diagnoses, patient characteristics and disease severity was not available.
The aim of this study is to quantify and qualify inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for RTIs.
This is an observational study of the (antibiotic) management of patients with RTIs, using a detailed registration of RTI consultations by general practitioners (GPs). Consultations of which all necessary information was available were benchmarked to the prescribing guidelines for acute otitis media (AOM), acute sore throat, rhinosinusitis or acute cough. Levels of overprescribing for these indications and factors associated with overprescribing were determined.
The overall antibiotic prescribing rate was 38%. Of these prescriptions, 46% were not indicated by the guidelines. Relative overprescribing was highest for throat (including tonsillitis) and lowest for ear consultations (including AOM). Absolute overprescribing was highest for lower RTIs (including bronchitis). Overprescribing was highest for patients between 18 and 65 years of age, when GPs felt patients' pressure for an antibiotic treatment, for patients presenting with fever and with complaints longer than 1 week. Underprescribing was observed in <4% of the consultations without a prescription.
Awareness of indications and patient groups provoking antibiotic overprescribing can help in the development of targeted strategies to improve GPs' prescribing routines for RTIs.
Outpatients with acute cough who expect, hope for or ask for antibiotics may be more unwell, benefit more from antibiotic treatment, and be more satisfied with care when they are prescribed ...antibiotics. Clinicians may not accurately identify those patients.
To explore whether patient views (expecting, hoping for or asking for antibiotics) are associated with illness presentation and resolution, whether patient views are accurately perceived by clinicians, and the association of all these factors with antibiotic prescribing and patient satisfaction with care.
Prospective observational study of 3402 adult patients with acute cough presenting in 14 primary care networks. Correlations and associations tested with multilevel logistic regression and McNemar 's tests, and Cohen's Kappa, positive agreement (PA) and negative agreement (NA) calculated as appropriate.
1,213 (45.1%) patients expected, 1,093 (40.6%) hoped for, and 275 (10.2%) asked for antibiotics. Clinicians perceived 840 (31.3%) as wanting to be prescribed antibiotics (McNemar's test, p<0.05). Their perception agreed modestly with the three patient views (Kappa's = 0.29, 0.32 and 0.21, PA's = 0.56, 0.56 and 0.33, NA's = 0.72, 0.75 and 0.82, respectively). 1,464 (54.4%) patients were prescribed antibiotics. Illness presentation and resolution were similar for patients regardless their views. These associations were not modified by antibiotic treatment. Patient expectation and hope (OR:2.08, 95% CI:1.48,2.93 and 2.48 1.73,3.55, respectively), and clinician perception (12.18 8.31,17.84) were associated with antibiotic prescribing. 2,354 (92.6%) patients were satisfied. Only those hoping for antibiotics were less satisfied when antibiotics were not prescribed (0.39 0.17,0.90).
Patient views about antibiotic treatment were not useful for identifying those who will benefit from antibiotics. Clinician perceptions did not match with patient views, but particularly influenced antibiotic prescribing. Patients were generally satisfied with care, but those hoping for but not prescribed antibiotics were less satisfied. Clinicians need to more effectively elicit and address patient views about antibiotics.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Antibiotic use and concomitant resistance are increasing. Literature reviews do not unambiguously indicate which interventions are most effective in improving antibiotic prescribing practice.
To ...assess the effectiveness of physician-targeted interventions aiming to improve antibiotic prescribing for respiratory tract infections (RTIs) in primary care, and to identify intervention features mostly contributing to intervention success.
Analysis of a set of physician-targeted interventions in primary care.
A literature search (1990-2009) for studies describing the effectiveness of interventions aiming to optimise antibiotic prescription for RTIs by primary care physicians. Intervention features were extracted and effectiveness sizes were calculated. Association between intervention features and intervention success was analysed in multivariate regression analysis.
This study included 58 studies, describing 87 interventions of which 60% significantly improved antibiotic prescribing; interventions aiming to decrease overall antibiotic prescription were more frequently effective than interventions aiming to increase first choice prescription. On average, antibiotic prescription was reduced by 11.6%, and first choice prescription increased by 9.6%. Multiple interventions containing at least 'educational material for the physician' were most often effective. No significant added value was found for interventions containing patient-directed elements. Communication skills training and near-patient testing sorted the largest intervention effects.
This review emphasises the importance of physician education in optimising antibiotic use. Further research should focus on how to provide physicians with the relevant knowledge and tools, and when to supplement education with additional intervention elements. Feasibility should be included in this process.
The Community-Acquired Pneumonia Immunization Trial in Adults (CAPiTA) demonstrated the efficacy of 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) in preventing vaccine-type community-acquired ...pneumonia and vaccine-type invasive pneumococcal disease in elderly subjects. We examined the cost-effectiveness of PCV13 vaccination in the Netherlands. Using a Markov-type model, incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) of PCV13 vaccination in different age- and risk-groups for pneumococcal disease were evaluated using a societal perspective. Estimates of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), costs, vaccine efficacy and epidemiological data were based on the CAPiTA study and other prospective studies. The base-case was PCV13 vaccination of adults aged 65-74 years compared to no vaccination, assuming no net indirect effects in base-case due to paediatric 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine use. Analyses for age- and risk-group specific vaccination strategies and for different levels of hypothetical herd effects from a paediatric PCV programme were also conducted. The ICER for base-case was €8650 per QALY (95% CI 5750-17,100). Vaccination of high-risk individuals aged 65-74 years was cost-saving and extension to medium-risk individuals aged 65-74 years yielded an ICER of €2900. Further extension to include medium- and high-risk individuals aged ≥18 years yielded an ICER of €3100.PCV13 vaccination is highly cost-effective in the Netherlands. The transferability of our results to other countries depends upon vaccination strategies already implemented in those countries.
In this double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving more than 84,000 Dutch adults, the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine was found to prevent pneumococcal disease but not the overall ...occurrence of community-acquired pneumonia.
Streptococcus pneumoniae
, a major cause of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly, results in considerable morbidity and mortality.
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–
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Pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia most commonly presents as nonbacteremic disease.
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Invasive pneumococcal disease, which involves infection of normally sterile sites, occurs in approximately 25% of cases.
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Immunologic protection against pneumococcal disease is mediated through opsonophagocytic antibodies directed against bacterial capsular polysaccharides that define the pneumococcal serotypes and serve as virulence factors.
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Vaccines composed of purified capsular polysaccharides, which have been available for more than 50 years, are not immunogenic in young children.
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Although some studies have shown that purified capsular polysaccharides . . .
AbstractObjectiveTo evaluate whether antibiotic prescribing for suspected urinary tract infections in frail older adults can be reduced through a multifaceted antibiotic stewardship ...intervention.DesignPragmatic, parallel, cluster randomised controlled trial, with a five month baseline period and a seven month follow-up period.Setting38 clusters consisting of one or more general practices (n=43) and older adult care organisations (n=43) in Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, from September 2019 to June 2021.Participants1041 frail older adults aged 70 or older (Poland 325, the Netherlands 233, Norway 276, Sweden 207), contributing 411 person years to the follow-up period.InterventionHealthcare professionals received a multifaceted antibiotic stewardship intervention consisting of a decision tool for appropriate antibiotic use, supported by a toolbox with educational materials. A participatory-action-research approach was used for implementation, with sessions for education, evaluation, and local tailoring of the intervention. The control group provided care as usual.Main outcome measuresThe primary outcome was the number of antibiotic prescriptions for suspected urinary tract infections per person year. Secondary outcomes included the incidence of complications, all cause hospital referrals, all cause hospital admissions, all cause mortality within 21 days after suspected urinary tract infections, and all cause mortality.ResultsThe numbers of antibiotic prescriptions for suspected urinary tract infections in the follow-up period were 54 prescriptions in 202 person years (0.27 per person year) in the intervention group and 121 prescriptions in 209 person years (0.58 per person year) in the usual care group. Participants in the intervention group had a lower rate of receiving an antibiotic prescription for a suspected urinary tract infection compared with participants in the usual care group, with a rate ratio of 0.42 (95% confidence interval 0.26 to 0.68). No differences between intervention and control group were observed in the incidence of complications (<0.01 v 0.05 per person year), hospital referrals (<0.01 v 0.05), admissions to hospital (0.01 v 0.05), and mortality (0 v 0.01) within 21 days after suspected urinary tract infections, nor in all cause mortality (0.26 v 0.26).ConclusionsImplementation of a multifaceted antibiotic stewardship intervention safely reduced antibiotic prescribing for suspected urinary tract infections in frail older adults.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT03970356.
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