DT News - UK - Individualised feedback can reduce dentists’ prescription of antibiotics

Dental Tribune International

Thu. 1 September 2016

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CAMBRIDGE, UK: While dentists only prescribe 10 per cent of all antibiotics in the UK, they often prescribe them inappropriately. Over-prescription of antibiotics could be reduced to some extent if practitioners receive individualised feedback about their prescription practices the results of a trial, published in the PLOS Medicine journal, among NHS dentists in Scotland have indicated.

In a study involving all 795 antibiotic-prescribing general dentistry practices in the country, a group of researchers from Dundee, Aberdeen and Glasgow sent out graphic plots of the monthly prescription rates of each dentist at the respective practices, which were randomly selected. Some of these practices were also sent a written behaviour change message reiterating national recommendations.

After 12 months, the rate of prescriptions was compared to those of practices that had received neither graphs nor messages. The researchers found an overall reduction of 5 per cent in the group that had received the feedback.

Although the intervention achieved a slight reduction, the researchers suggested that multifaceted measures like audit and feedback intervention might offer no advantage over single measures because of their complexity and the overall costs involved. They, however, emphasised the need to develop new strategies to change health professionals’ prescribing behaviour.

Previous studies have found that, despite clinical guidelines, antibiotic prescriptions are often given by dentists without clinical need. Last year, medical bodies in the UK, including the British Dental Association, joined the One Health initiative in order to promote responsible use of antibiotics in dentistry and other fields of medicine.

The study, titled “An audit and feedback intervention for reducing antibiotic prescribing in general dental practice: The RAPiD cluster randomised controlled trial”, was published on 30 August in PLOS Medicine.

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