IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF ANTIBIOTIC PRESCRIPTION PATTERNS IN GENERAL-PRACTICE - THE ROLE OF EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION

Objective: To assess the quality of antibiotic prescribing by Victoria n general practitioners, and the effectiveness of educational interven tion techniques in improving prescribing. Design: A randomised, contro lled, parallel group trial. Setting and participants: In rural and met ropolitan Victoria, 182 general practitioners (78 control, 104 interve ntion) began and 103 (41 control, 62 intervention) completed the study . Intervention: Participants recorded their antibiotic prescribing for tonsillitis. The intervention group received an educational mailing c ampaign. A project pharmacist visited each doctor to discuss campaign messages. Main outcome measure: The percentages of prescriptions of an tibiotics for tonsillitis complying with those recommended in Antibiot ic guidelines. Results: In the intervention group, prescriptions consi stent with recommendations in the guidelines increased from 60.5% befo re the campaign to 87.7% afterwards. Improvement also occurred in the control group, from 52.9% to 71.7% of prescriptions. The improvement w ithin the intervention group was significantly greater than that withi n the control group. Conclusions: The educational campaign significant ly improved the prescribing of appropriate antibiotics for tonsillitis by general practitioners.