PMID: 16536956Mar 16, 2006Paper

Consultations for middle ear disease, antibiotic prescribing and risk factors for reattendance: a case-linked cohort study

The British Journal of General Practice : the Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
Ian WilliamsonPaul Little

Abstract

Otitis media is the most common reason for children to receive antibiotics, but there is no evidence about the effect of prescribing on reattendance. To evaluate the changing workload of middle ear disease in general practice, and the impact on surgery reattendance of prescribing antibiotics at first attendance. A case-linked cohort analysis for antibiotic prescribing versus no prescribing at first consultation event. Two hundred and ninety-one practices spread throughout the UK recording for the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) and incorporating individual patient data records for 2,265,574 patients. All middle ear disease coded events that can be classed within acute otitis media (AOM) or glue ear sub-categories (and excluding chronic suppurative otitis media) were selected for analysis when the first event was from 1991-2001. The effect of antibiotic prescription on the risk of reattendance using Cox proportional hazards regression was analysed. Total consultations for AOM have fallen markedly over this decade, and glue ear consultations have risen but by a much smaller extent (26,000 decrease versus 4000 increase in consultations per year), which makes relabelling an unlikely explanation of the fall in AOM consulta...Continue Reading

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