Loading...
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 …