Australian Doctor Australian Doctor 17th November 2017 | Page 7

Parents still expect antibiotics for URTIs
MICHAEL WOODHEAD
ONE in three families still
expect an antibiotic pre-
scription to treat their
child’s respiratory tract
infections and more than
half want antibiotics for an
ear infection, new Austral-
ian figures show.
A national survey of over
1000 parents shows that
31% would consult a GP
with the intention of getting
antibiotics to treat children
who have sore throats, and
23% would specifically ask
the doctor for antibiotics.
The findings — released
by NPS MedicineWise to
mark World Antibiotic
Awareness Week — also
showed that 55% of parents
expected antibiotics from
the GP if their child had an
earache.
Parents also had unrealis-
tic expectations about their
child having a rapid recov-
ery.
Most thought a child’s
cough and cold should last
about six days, whereas
studies showed only 50%
of children were better at 10
days, while symptoms could
last up to two weeks.
“These findings appear
to illustrate a disconnect
between when many par-
ents think their child should
have made a recovery and
how long some of these
kinds of symptoms can actu-
ally last,” said Dr Andrew
Boyden, a GP in Canberra
and NPS MedicineWise’s
medical adviser.
“This could help explain
why they go to the GP
thinking that antibiotics
may be needed when, often,
they are not required,” he
added.
Dr Boyden said it was
Shaky start for
Health Care Homes
GEIR O’ROURKE
THE first month of Health Car e
Homes has been plagued
with registration delays and IT
malfunctions, but patients are
starting to “get it”, says a GP
involved in the program.
Western Sydney GP Dr
Thava Seelan (pictured) has
already signed up 30 patients
for Health Care Homes and
says it has taken him up to two
hours to enrol each one.
Bridgeview Medical Centre,
where Dr Seelan is a partner,
is slated to enlist 500 patients
by next year, out of an eligible
patient base of 1200.
They entered the Federal-
Government-run pilot along
with 21 other practices in
October, but the practice’s
seven GPs have been spruiking
the benefits of the chronic
disease initiative to likely
patients for months.
Bridgeview, the 2013
RACGP practice of the year,
is already providing some
team care, funded through
the WentWest Primary Health
Network, so they are more
prepared than most practices.
“We have been pulling
aside our chronic disease
patients and telling them about
the benefits of co-ordinated
care, explaining they won’t
have to come every time for
medications or test results and
they won’t be neglected if they
miss something,” Dr Seelan
says.
“The patients really get it.
They’re people who have come
here for years, and when we
explain it to them, they are
happy to be involved,” he says.
So far convincing
participants to join the program
has been easy — at least
compared with filling out
the mountains of paperwork
required to finish the process.
“It is a bit complex,” Dr
Seelan says. “After explaining
the concept to the patient, you
have to enrol them on practice
software, then with the risk
stratification tool [an algorithm
that assesses the care needs
of the patient], you have to find
out what block funding they are
eligible for.
“But that only gets you half
way, you then have to do an
electronic care plan before you
finally go to the Department of
Human Services and register
the patient with Medicare.”
To make matters worse, the
software — used to tell the
practice which of its patients
are eligible and to which
funding tier they should be
assigned — has been offline
at least two of the past four
weeks.
MILLENIALS NOT GETTING THE MESSAGE
YOUNGER Australians appear to have a ‘no worries’ attitude
to antibiotic resistance, according to an NPS MedicineWise
survey. Only one in three people in the 16-24 age group think
that antibiotic resistance poses a threat in the near future,
compared with almost half of people in the 55-64 age group.
Dr Andrew Boyden, from NPS MedicineWise, says this
might be because the younger generation has grown up in an
era when easy access to antibiotics is taken for granted and
serious infections are usually treatable.
“This is the group that will be more affected over time, and
these figures show this is the group we need to communicate
with about antibiotic resistance,” he says.
disappointing that many
parents still appeared to be
unaware that antibiotics
were not needed for minor
respiratory illness and that
unnecessary antibiotic use
increased the likelihood of
resistance.
He pointed out that the
findings come just a week
after infectious disease phy-
sicians warned that antibi-
otic resistance was already
responsible for 1500 deaths
a year in Australia.
The warning also noted
that deaths due to antibiotic
resistance were expected to
exceed those for cancer by
2030.
Dr Boyden of NPS MedicineWise says the findings demonstrate
how parents misunderstand how long sypmtoms will last.
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