Given more information, many patients will agree not to take unnecessary antibiotics.

General practitioners prescribe antibiotics to as many as three quarter of British adults each year, knowing that in many cases the drugs aren't really needed. Worse, overuse of antibiotics tends to promote the emergence of resistant bacteria. But patients often expect a prescription - even for an infection, like a sore throat, that will clear up on its own.

In a study by researchers in Nottingham, England, over 250 adults with acute bronchitis were divided into two groups. The first comprised 212 patients who didn't really need antibiotics, at least on the day of consultation; they were given a prescription to take if they felt worse. Some of these patients were also given an information leaflet explaining the various uncertainties and problems around antibiotic use. The rest of the patients in this group did not get the leaflet. In the second group, the patients needed antibiotics, and were given them.

The researchers noted that the patients with the information leaflet decreased their use of the unnecessary antibiotics by almost a quarter. So here's a simple and cheap intervention that can help reduce the problem of antibiotic resistance.

Source

British Medical Journal January 12 2002