Talk about your antibiotic worries with a doctor before taking them for a condition the medicine won’t help.

Is that prescription really necessary?

06-01-09 RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Antibiotic-resistant diseases are one of the most pressing public health problems in this country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Some scientists suspect that our love affair with antimicrobial products, such as antibiotic-laced bedsheets and hairbrushes, are contributing to the rise of bacteria that can shrug off medicine used against them. But the CDC still points the finger at the widespread use of antibiotic medications, often prescribed even when they’re not effective at treating a patient’s illness. A new study published in the British Medical Journal suggests another way, finding that doctors trained in certain types of blood tests and communication skills were very successful in treating certain conditions without relying on antibiotics.

THE DETAILS: Researchers in Norway recruited 40 physicians with patients suffering from lower-respiratory infections. They focused on these types of infections since they are often treated with antibiotics, despite the fact that the infections could be viral in nature and therefore not susceptible to those particular drugs. The doctors were divided into four categories: one group that did blood tests on patients, another that communicated the risks and benefits of antibiotics, another that combined both methods, and a fourth that continued with usual diagnostic and treatment procedures. Physicians in the blood test and the communication groups prescribed 22 percent and 27 percent fewer antibiotics, respectively, than the group following usual procedures. Doctors who were trained in particular communication points (asking patients their opinions and concerns about antibiotic use and providing information on the natural course and symptoms of a lower respiratory tract infection) also prescribed fewer antibiotics than the doctors performing blood tests. The doctors who used both blood tests and effective communication prescribed the least antibiotics, 44 percent fewer than the “usual procedures” group.