Antibiotic prescribing and patient satisfaction in primary care in England: cross-sectional analysis of national patient survey data and prescribing data
Published in
British Journal of General Practice, December 2015
Concerns about adverse effects on patient satisfaction may be an important obstacle to attempts to curtail antibiotic prescribing.
To determine the relationship between antibiotic prescribing in general practice and reported patient satisfaction.
Retrospective cross-sectional study of general practices in England.
Data were obtained from the General Practice Patient Survey (GPPS) in 2012 (2.7 million questionnaires in England; 982 999 responses; response rate 36%); the national Quality and Outcomes Framework dataset for England, 2011-2012 (8164 general practices); and general practice and demographic characteristics. Standardised measures of antibiotic prescribing volumes were obtained for each practice in England during 2012-2013, together with 12 other nationally available prescribing variables. The role of antibiotic prescribing volume was identified as a determinant of GPPS scores and adjusted for demographic and practice factors using multiple linear regression.
The final dataset consisted of 7800 (95.5%) practices. A total of 33.7 million antibiotic prescriptions were issued to a registered population of 53.8 million patients. Antibiotic prescribing volume was a significant positive predictor of all 'doctor satisfaction' and 'practice satisfaction' scores in the GPPS, and was the strongest predictor of overall satisfaction out of 13 prescribing variables. A theoretical 25% reduction in antibiotic prescribing volume would be associated with 0.5-1.0% lower patient satisfaction scores, a drop of 3-6 centile points in national satisfaction ranking.
Patients were less satisfied in practices with frugal antibiotic prescribing. A cautious approach to antibiotic prescribing may require a trade-off in terms of patient satisfaction.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
14
7%
Social Sciences
9
5%
Psychology
8
4%
Other
26
14%
Unknown
60
32%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 216. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 October 2022.
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