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When patients with upper respiratory infections seek antibiotic treatment, a strategy of delaying prescription for a few days might limit both unnecessary antibiotic use and patient unhappiness. Researchers combined individual data from 13 studies (9 randomized, 4 observational) into a single analysis. Patients were children and adults; conditions included sore throat, acute otitis media, upper and lower respiratory infections, and colds. Strategies were delayed provision of prescription, postdated prescriptions provided for delayed filling, prescriptions provided with instructions to delay medication ingestion, or advice to come back if symptoms persisted or recurred.
Among more than 55,000 patients (half of whom came from one large British…