Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, primary care doctors in Canada often prescribed antibiotics unnecessarily for respiratory tract infections such as the common cold, sinusitis, and acute bronchitis, according to new research.
For some viral conditions, such as the common cold or bronchitis, about half of the doctors never prescribed antibiotics, marking a positive trend. However, a quarter of the providers prescribed antibiotics for nearly all their patients with ear infections or sinusitis and about half of their patients with common colds.
Dr Jerome Leis
"Judicious use of antibiotics is crucial to our fight against the growing public health threat of antimicrobial resistance," senior study author Jerome Leis, MD, medical director of infection prevention and control at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, Ontario, told Medscape Medical News.
"We already know that, in general, about 40% of antibiotics prescribed for respiratory tract infection in primary care are unnecessary and could be avoided," he said. "But we cannot improve something without first measuring it accurately…across specific respiratory tract infection conditions."
The findings were published online April 6 in the Canada Communicable Disease Report.
Monitoring Nationwide Trends
Respiratory tract infections represent the leading reason for avoidable antimicrobial use in primary care in Canada, the study authors wrote.
