Strama’s training on antibiotics is yielding results

A survey of 384 doctors via PraktiskMedicin.se indicates that training with Strama leads to more doctors reasoning correctly about the use of CRP in tonsillitis.

The survey Antibiotic Barometer has been available on PraktiskMedicin.se during 2020 and shows interesting results. 24% of the 384 responding doctors had had an education with Strama in the past year. The most important thing that emerged in this group was that those who received training from Strama to a greater extent chose not to take CRP when assessing tonsillitis compared with those who did not receive training (71.4% and 56.1%, respectively).

– This is an interesting observation as we at Strama want to reach out with this message to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescribing. CRP is a completely unnecessary test when assessing tonsillitis. The answers to the survey give a clear indication that our educational investment is yielding results. Now it is just a matter of this message reaching even more people, say Anna-Lena Fastén and Astrid Lundevall, both general practitioners at Strama Stockholm.

In addition to the survey, Strama had an antibiotic training at PM Academy in 2020 with 753 respondents, of which 346 doctors and 305 other healthcare staff. It was interesting here that only 57% of the doctors answered correctly to the question of the reason why one can choose to treat an uncomplicated cystitis in a young, otherwise healthy, non-pregnant woman. The correct answer is to relieve troublesome symptoms, but 31% of doctors chose the answer option “to prevent it from progressing to a pyelonephritis”. For other healthcare professionals, the answers were approximately equally distributed between these two answer alternatives with approximately 40% each. (The risk of an untreated lower urinary tract infection developing into a pyelonephritis in such a patient is very small.)

– We have a great interest in the Academy educations at Praktisk Medicin and it is interesting to see in which areas more training may be needed for doctors and other care staff. The results in both the survey and the training indicate that knowledge about antibiotic prescribing needs to be increased in the medical profession and that training in the area gives good results, says Sofia Åkerlund, leg. doctor and editor-in-chief of Praktisk Medicin.

Of all antibiotic prescriptions for people in Sweden, 80–90% take place in primary care, compared with 10–20% given in hospitals. Approximately 60% of the physicians who responded to the Antibiotic Barometer were specialists in general medicine, which indicates that the examination and education in Praktisk Medicin has largely reached the right target group.

A similar survey via DOKTORN.com, aimed at the general public, showed that among the 10,000 respondents there was a concern about an increase in resistant bacteria in society and that their intestinal flora will be negatively affected by antibiotic use. Strama Stockholm is working on a new web training that is about our microbiota and how it changes with antibiotic use.

– We at Strama need to reach out to the public about how antibiotics not only drive the development of resistant bacteria but can also create problems through changes in the normal bacterial flora that have a protective effect on health. We are working on the education that will be launched in 2021, says Anna-Lena Fastén and Astrid Lundevall at Strama Stockholm.

Click here to get to the education about antibiotics

For more information:
Sofia Åkerkund, Leg. doctor and editor-in-chief Praktisk Medicin
[email protected] , 0702-20 53 88