Conditions: Acute Upper Respiratory Tract Infections
Keywords: Respiratory infections Primary care Antibiotics Delayed prescriptions
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 149
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Delayed prescriptions have been shown to lower antibiotic use for upper respiratory tract infections (which are mostly viral).

This trial will test the hypothesis that if the clinician post-dates the delayed prescription by 2 days, rather than dating it on the day the patient is seen, there will be a further drop in the rate of antibiotic use.

Detailed description:
6 family doctors and 2 nurse practitioners in a small rural town will issue delayed antibiotic prescriptions to adult patients with new acute respiratory tract infections. The delayed prescriptions will be randomly dated for either the day of the office visit, or 2 days later. The 2 local pharmacies will note whether the prescription is cashed, and when.

It is hypothesised that post-dating the prescription will result in a reduced cashing rate.

Each arm of the study (Usual v Post-Dated) will contain 75 subjects. This sample will have the power to detect a 25% change in prescription use.

Arms:
arm 1: a delayed prescription dated 2 days after clinical office visit arm 2: usual date

Interventions: intervention 1: A delayed prescription dated 2 days after clinical office visit intervention 2: Usual Dated
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: None intervention 2: None

Protocol document: