For the week of January 2 - 8, 2002

Valley part of antibiotics over-prescription study

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By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer

The Wood River Valley is one of six Idaho communities selected to participate in a $6.6 million study of anti-microbial resistance. It is being funded by the Centers for Disease Control.

Dr. Kurt Stevenson, a Boise-based researcher, will begin meeting with local doctors this month to learn about the way they prescribe antibiotics and to work with them on improving the way they prescribe the drugs.

The nonprofit medical research company Stevenson works for, PRO-West, along with the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, hope to reduce the over-prescription of antibiotics, which can increase the ability of infectious bacterial diseases to resist treatment.

Results from the two-year study, dubbed Inter-Mountain Project on Antimicrobial Resistance and Therapy, will also be published in JAMA, Stevenson said.

The problem of over-prescription is widely recognized and appears to occur wherever antibiotics are used.

As many as 40 percent of children across the nation who seek treatment for the common cold get prescriptions for antibiotics, even though the drugs do nothing to fight the bug, Stevenson said, citing data from a 1992 national study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Antibiotics don’t work on viral infections, like the common cold. Stevenson and other researchers involved with the project hope to learn more about how often antibiotics are unnecessarily prescribed and to reduce over-prescription at the same time.

The study also involves a campaign to increase public awareness of the problem. By targeting the Wood River Valley with radio and newspaper announcements, posters and pamphlets, researchers hope to learn what does and does not change patient behavior.

"Lots of times, patients, when they get a cold, they think an antibiotic is going to make them get better," Stevenson said. "You have busy physicians and persistent patients." Doctors often choose to simply prescribe antibiotics rather than argue with patients that the drug won’t work against the common cold virus, Stevenson said. Also, doctors typically practice a certain degree of overkill when treating patients, Stevenson said.

The problem is important, he said, because national research has already shown that children inappropriately treated with antibiotics develop a high number of pneumococcus bacteria that are resistant to treatment. The bacteria occur naturally in the body and can cause respiratory infections.

Emmett and Twin Falls will also be part of the researchers’ campaign to target doctors and patients. Researchers also plan to focus on patient education in Pocatello, Blackfoot and Rexburg in eastern Idaho. And six communities in Utah will be part of the study.

A pilot study conducted two years ago in two communities in Utah showed that targeting both doctors and patients reduced inappropriate antibiotic use by 50 percent, Stevenson said.

Researchers will determine the effects of the educational push by monitoring hospital records.

The multifaceted study also has an agricultural component that will involve antimicrobial resistance in E. coli bacteria and how it may be transmitted from food as well as direct agricultural contact.

 

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