A recent study has discovered that general dental practitioners or GDP who are less trained and less confident in administering local anesthesia are more likely to inappropriately prescribe antibiotics or Abs not in accordance to the guidelines.
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Researchers assessed the prescribing patterns of 198
UK-based GDPs, by using an online questionnaire circulated via social media. The
questionnaire presented two hypothetical clinical scenarios: a patient with
severe pulpitis and another with acute apical periodontitis. Neither scenario
required antibiotics.
Respondents were asked how long a treatment would
take, how likely they would give an antibiotics prescription, and what their
chances are of successfully providing local anesthesia.
There were 7 or 4% respondents said that they would be
“highly likely” or “certain” to prescribe antibiotics. For acute apical periodontitis,
37 general dental practitioners or 18% responded similarly by prescribing
antibiotics.
Using a chi-squared testing, it found out four factors
that associated with the likelihood of prescribing antibiotics inappropriately.
For example, there were significantly more general dental practitioners who
were educated in a non-UK university who said that they were either highly likely
or certain to prescribe antibiotics, even though neither hypothetical scenario
called for it.
Also, such inappropriate prescription patterns were
significantly more common in general dental practitioners who had low or no
confidence that they could successfully provide local anesthesia and those who
lacked postgraduate qualifications.
Particularly, general dental practitioners who said
that they would need <20 minutes of appointment time were also more likely
to inappropriately prescribe antibiotics.
Source: Br Dent J2021;doi:10.1038/s41415-021-3008-x