How to Lessen Antibiotic Prescription Rate for Lower Respiratory Tract Infections

Lower respiratory tract infections — acute bronchitis and pneumonia — are a common reason for patients to see their clinicians. Patients with self-limited acute bronchitis get little or no benefit from antibiotics, yet such patients usually receive prescriptions. Reasons for this prescribing practice include difficulty in differentiating acute bronchitis from pneumonia based on history and examination findings and physicians’ lack of training for handling patients’ demands for antibiotics. Prior research suggests that C-reactive protein (CRP) testing can help distinguish acute bronchitis from pneumonia.

In this trial, Dutch investigators examined how two interventions — point-of-care CRP testing and communication skills training — affected a…