A new study found that doctors are often willing to “take a risk” in prescribing antibiotics to patients with non-bacterial diseases like the flu.
The study, which was published Thursday, sought to understand the decision making process for prescribing and taking antibiotics. Researchers found that patients and medical care providers know antibiotics don’t treat viruses and can have negative side effects, but many still believe prescribing the medication may make patients feel better, according to a release.
David Broniatowski – an assistant professor of engineering management and systems engineering who led the study – said in a release patients are motivated to take antibiotics because they want to feel better, even if their illness is not bacterial.
“When you’re feeling sick, you just want to feel better as soon as possible and the side effects from antibiotics look extremely mild in comparison,” Broniatowski said in the release. “There’s always that extremely rare possibility that your disease actually is bacterial.”
Researchers also concluded that most medical care providers knew antibiotics wouldn’t treat viruses and can only treat bacterial infections, but prescribed the medication anyway, according to the report.
The team of researchers from GW, University of California, Davis, Johns Hopkins and Cornell universities, and the Center For Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy surveyed 149 clinicians and 225 patients from two large urban academic hospitals and 519 non-patient subjects, according to the release.
The study found that this approach may lead to overprescribing antibiotics, which has caused 23,000 deaths and 2 million illnesses in the United States, according to the release. Heavy antibiotic use also contributes to the spread of superbugs, or strains of bacteria that become resistant to antibiotic treatment, which cost more than $20 billion to treat annually, the release states.
“People may be acting strategically – trying to hedge their bets – when they expect or prescribe antibiotics,” Broniatowski said in the release. “Unfortunately, this individually-rational action leads to negative consequences for society.”
