Understanding physician antibiotic prescribing behaviour: a systematic review of qualitative studies

Trends and Seasonal Variation in Outpatient Antibiotic Prescription Rates in the United States, 2006 to 2010

“…Prescribing of antibiotics is a complex process and is driven by physician attitudes, patient signs and symptoms, and time pressure (23 Prescribing of most antibiotic classes decreased over the study period. Prescribing rates are likely declining due to patient education, changes in provider behavior, decreases in outpatient visits for acute respiratory infections, and increases in vaccine administration rates (9,24,25).…”

Antibiotic use in Namibia: prescriber practices for common community infections

“…The literature is still divided on whether these factors influence prescribing or not. For example, in line with these findings, some authors found that sex and provider type had no influence on behaviour, 18 while others reported that younger doctors were more likely to prescribe antibiotics than older doctors. 19,20 Similarly, some authors reported that doctors with fewer years of experience were more likely to prescribe antibiotics than their counterparts with longer experience 20,21 while others reported the opposite.…”

“…This is consistent with literature findings which stated that fear was one of the factors influencing behaviour. 18,20,24,27 In these studies, doctors generally reported fear of the development of serious As seen in this study, lack of access to local microbiology data can lead to doctors under-appreciating the prevalent levels of resistance and therefore using antibiotics with lower sensitivity. Second, doctors could overlook effective narrow-spectrum agents in favour of broad-spectrum antibiotics.…”

“…However, other studies reported that high patient volumes resulted in high antibiotic prescribing. 6,18,22,24 Similarly, looking at other studies we would have expected to find variations in prescribing practices based on qualifications and region of practice. 7,[20][21][22]25,26 For all listed infections, doctors treat empirically.…”

“…The same sentiments were shared by other authors. 6,18 While a variety of antibiotics are the reported first-line choice of prescribers, the most commonly used were the combination of amoxicillin with clavulanic acid, hereafter referred to as co-amoxiclav, amoxicillin and ciprofloxacin. The patterns of first choice of antibiotics observed in this study are similar to assessment of antibiotic consumption reported in other studies of different methodologies.…”