Antibiotics or No Antibiotics, Outpatients with Acute Respiratory Infections Do Well

Antibiotics are overprescribed for respiratory infections, but convincing either patients or their clinicians that most respiratory infections will improve without antibiotics is not easy. One reason might be that large-scale real-world data to support this premise actually are hard to come by.

Researchers prospectively followed the course of the disease in nearly 29,000 patients (age, ≥16) who visited U.K. primary care practices with a new cough. Patients who clearly had pneumonia were excluded, as were those whose cough was deemed noninfectious. Antibiotics were prescribed immediately for 61% of patients and were not prescribed at all for 25%; remaining patients received antibiotic prescriptions with advice to fill them only if things did …