Decreasing Antibiotic Overuse in Upper Respiratory Tract Infections Through an Educational Intervention Aimed at Nurse Practitioners

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effect of an educational intervention, aimed at nurse practitioners, on increasing knowledge and decreasing prescribing habits of antibiotics in upper respiratory tract infections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently estimates that nearly fifty percent of antibiotics prescribed in the outpatient setting are unnecessary. The world health organization states that antibiotic overuse is becoming a growing problem worldwide. Numerous studies have been completed targeting physicians and patients, but no long term decrease in antibiotic prescribing has been seen. As the number and role of nurse practitioners increase, this intervention was aimed to target a specially this specially educated group. Research has shown that nurse practitioners have equal outcomes and equal to higher patient satisfaction ratings when compared to physician counterparts. Thus, this group may help to decrease antibiotic overuse. Lewin's three step change theory served as the conceptual framework. The theory uses initial unfreezing, then finding a new equilibrium and finally refreezing, thus creating a new baseline for participants. A sample of fifty one nurse practitioners participated in the one group pretest/posttest/4-week posttest measuring knowledge and intention. Knowledge was measure using the questionnaire results; intention was measured by reviewing Likert-type rankings. Change in knowledge was found to be statistically significant, demonstrating that education will affect knowledge. However, intention was not found to be statistically significant. Intention did increase during the study, but not enough to show that there was an overall statistically significant effect.