Hi Anthony
Interesting indeed.
What is the denominator in the data you refer to? Is it prescriptions per population or, for example, prescription per consultation for RTIs? One explanation might be a differential in consulting rates??? When we've looked at the reduction in antibiotic prescribing in England at the end of the 1990s, the correlation was with consulting rates. In other words, the prescribing continued at the same rate but there were fewer consultations - either due to demand going down or access being more difficult. If, for some reason boys were brought more frequently than girls......and then the consultation behaviour changed in teenage years???
Antibiotic prescribing rates over here are now back where they were in the early 1990s - so the graph has a U-shaped curve - but I've not seen analyses as to whether consulting rates are responsible.
Bw
Neal
Neal Maskrey
National Prescribing Centre
Liverpool UK
-----Original Message-----
From: Evidence based health (EBH) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anthony Cummins
Sent: 08 February 2011 16:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Antibiotic prescribing patterns in boys and girls at different ages
Dear colleagues
This is my first email sent to JISCMAIL. I hope that you find this query interesting and can offer some assistance:
On reviewing published literature on antibiotic prescribing by General Practitioners (GPs) in boys and girls I have noticed that there is a significant increased likelihood of boys under age 4 years being prescribed antibiotics more than girls but that gender pattern is reversed as they get older: teenage girls are significantly more likely to be prescribved an antibiotic than teenage boys.
I can offer some possible explanatations for this older pattern viz a teenage girl is more likely to suffer from symptoms of UTI or to attend for contraception advice, sometimes using an acute respiratory infection as her "vehicle".
I am at a loss to explain the younger gender difference.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Anthony Cummins
Dr. Anthony Cummins MB BCh BAO MRCGP
Clinical lecturer/ Academic Research Staff
Department of General Practice &
HRB Centre for Primary Care Research
RCSI Medical School
St. Stephen's Green
Dublin 2
Tel +35314028604
Email [log in to unmask]
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From: Evidence based health (EBH) [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ash Paul [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 07 February 2011 19:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Helping doctors and patients make sense of statistics
Thanks for this Paul.
Another equally good book well worth reading on a similarly related subject is one written by Sir Iain Chalmers et al (with a foreward by Ben Goldacre from this Group)
Testing Treatments: better research for better health care Downloads
The English, Arabic, Chinese and Spanish texts are now available without charge (see links below) under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/>. If you wish to receive information about future translations and editions of 'Testing Treatments', send your contact details to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>.
* Download English version Testing Treatments: better research for better health care<http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/pdf/testing-treatments.pdf>
* Descargue la versión en español "Cómo se prueban los tratamientos: Una mejor investigación para una mejor atención de salud<http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/pdf/testing-treatments-spanish.pdf>", un aporte de la Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS/OMS)
* Download Arabic version Testing Treatments: better research for better health care<http://ebm-syria.com/book.php>
Download the English Foreword to the Arabic translation<http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/pdf/testing-treatments-preface-arabic-trans.pdf>
Ash
Dr Ash Paul
Medical Director
NHS Bedfordshire
21 Kimbolton Road
Bedford
MK40 2AW
Tel no: 01234897224
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
________________________________
From: Paul Elias <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Mon, 7 February, 2011 18:20:28
Subject: Helping doctors and patients make sense of statistics
I share in case I did not prior:
Best,
Paul E. Alexander
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