Internet Training for Antibiotic Use (INTRO): GP Training Across Europe Seminar

The over prescription of antibiotics has been identified as a key contributor to the global health problem of antibiotic resistance.  Rationalising antibiotic use may be best targeted in Lower Respiratory Tract Infection (LRTI) where no clinically important difference in recovery has been found between those patients who receive antibiotics and those who do not.

Educational interventions aimed at GPs and patients have been found to be beneficial in reducing antibiotic prescribing, including training in communication skills, CRP near-patient testing and the use of patient booklets.  INTRO (Internet Training for Antibiotic Use) is a cluster randomised controlled trial designed to assess whether the incorporation of the most effective features of previous interventions can be cost-effectively combined with the benefits of web-based training to reduce antibiotic prescriptions rates for LRTI across Europe.  To date, this behavioural intervention has been iteratively developed by drawing upon such empirical findings, as well as qualitative analysis from interviews and focus groups related to the web-based intervention and patient booklet.  This development is complete and GP training will commence shortly in Belgium, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and UK.  This talk describes the process of developing the INTRO intervention, and the findings from qualitative piloting with GPs.

A post-training evaluation will take place to assess the feasibility of the intervention across and between these countries.  This will aim to explore the successes, difficulties and limitations of implementing behaviour change in practice.

The following questions may also be discussed:

What processes do you think should be considered when evaluating this intervention?

What psychological theories do you think will assist the evaluation of GP prescribing behaviour?