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- Title
Point of care susceptibility testing in primary care - does it lead to a more appropriate prescription of antibiotics in patients with uncomplicated urinary tract infections? Protocol for a randomized controlled trial.
- Authors
Holm, Anne; Cordoba, Gloria; Møller Sørensen, Tina; Rem Jessen, Lisbeth; Siersma, Volkert; Bjerrum, Lars
- Abstract
Background: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a common infection in primary care and is the second leading reason for prescription of antibiotics in Denmark. The diagnosis is often based on symptoms and urine dip-stick, which has limited validity, causing the risk of unnecessary antibiotic prescription. Additionally, with increasing antibiotic resistance, the risk of choosing an antibiotic to which an infecting pathogen is resistant is rising. Combined point-of-care-tests (POCT) for urine culture and susceptibility testing have been developed and validated for primary care, and performing such a test in all patients with suspected UTI in primary care seems rational in order to reduce the use of inappropriate antibiotics. However, the clinical effect of the culture and susceptibility test has not yet been investigated. This study aims to investigate whether POCT urine culture and susceptibility testing decreases the inappropriate use of antibiotics and leads to faster patient recovery. Methods/design: Randomized controlled open label trial of two diagnostic approaches. 750 patients with symptoms of uncomplicated UTI, consecutively contacting their general practitioner (GP), randomized to either POCT urine culture and susceptibility testing and targeted treatment or POCT urine culture without susceptibility testing and empirical treatment. Treatment is started when the POCT is read. The two groups are compared with regard to appropriate choice of antibiotics, clinical remission, and microbiological cure rates. Discussion: The results of this study may provide important evidence to recommend POCT culture and susceptibility testing in all patients with suspected uncomplicated UTI. This could become an additional strategy to fight antibiotic resistance.
- Subjects
DENMARK; ANTIBIOTICS; EXPERIMENTAL design; RESEARCH methodology; MICROBIAL sensitivity tests; PRIMARY health care; RESEARCH funding; URINARY tract infections; DECISION making in clinical medicine; LOGISTIC regression analysis; POINT-of-care testing; RANDOMIZED controlled trials; DATA analysis software; STATISTICAL models; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; KAPLAN-Meier estimator; LOG-rank test; ODDS ratio
- Publication
BMC Family Practice, 2015, Vol 16, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
1471-2296
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1186/s12875-015-0322-x