prescribed antibiotic prescriptions
prescribed antibiotic prescriptions
PEER REPLY
1- ALBERTO ALFONSO
Antibiotic use is a well known risk factor for infection or colonization with resistant pathogens that has been studied and researched in recent times. Health practitioners and nurses know that unnecessary antibiotic prescribing remains common. In my practice, I have recognized that more than a third of children are prescribed antibiotic prescriptions for upper respiratory tract infections or bronchitis, conditions that are almost always viral, and this is concerning.
Nurses and nursing organizations are working together to improve policies to encourage the judicious use of antibiotics in humans (Grant, 2016). Patients’ expectations for antibiotics affect doctors’ prescribing behavior. A long time of prescribing or taking antibiotics for viral respiratory infections have created a cycle of supply and demand, reinforcing behaviors that are detrimental in an era of increasing antibiotic resistance.
A significant approach is needed to increase the public’s understanding of antibiotic resistance and to change expectations about use of antibiotics. The key elements should include a public relations campaign, clinic based education, and community outreach activities, and is here were all health care providers including nurse practitioners play a significant and major important role (Palmer & Kishony, 2014). Nurse practitioners, other health care providers, and policy makers play an important role identifying the correlation between global disease surveillance and domestic disease surveillance.
Conducting public relations campaign with paid advertising is an effective but expensive strategy to change health related behavior. Educational interventions for patients and parents at outpatient clinics must be an important component of a public education campaign.
Interventions must be supported by national and local policies that promote judicious antibiotic use. National goals should be developed to reduce unnecessary use, and progress toward those goals should be monitored.
Antibiotic overuse may be an unintended consequence of quality assurance tools, such as surveys of patients’ satisfaction or profiling rates of follow up visits. Support is also needed to encourage appropriate diagnostic testing, even if this represents a short term direct cost. Sponsorship of continuing education and requirements for professional licensure are other potential policy options (Santos & Henderson, 2017).
References
Grant, O. (2016). Dramatic increase of antibiotic drug use and bacterial resistance. Critical Care Nursing Journal; 14 doi: 10.1186/cc9062.
Palmer A.C., Kishony R. (2014). Understanding, predicting and manipulating the genotypic evolution of antibiotic resistance. National Review of Genetics; 14:243–248. doi: 10.1038/nrg3351.
Santos, W. & Henderson, N. (2017). Infections caused by multiresistant Gram-negatives strains. New Microbiology Journal; 30:332–339.
2- ROSQUETE
Nurse organizations, nursing staff, and health policy influencers are critical players in helping implement strategies to promote the judicious and appropriate use of antibiotics. Policies are created to protect public health and ensure the use of medications, such as antibiotics are developed safely and the resistance to these drugs are evaluated to reduce the number of infections in humans (Randall & Sanders, 2017). An effort by a nurse organization, the American Nursing Association, entailsla symposium held at in 2015 at Florida International University to provide an opportunity for discussion about the use and overuse of antibiotics. Through this conversation, a policy was setlin the table to discuss an initiative for the judicious use of medically important antimicrobials in medicated feed or drinking water of food-producing animals (Randall & Sanders, 2017).
Domestic surveillance details a collection of national data through CDC’s National Vital Statistics System to evaluate, analyze, and disseminate statistics on births, deaths, marriages and fetal deaths. Through this tracking, the public learns about serious public health conditions such as HIV, tuberculosis (TB), influenza, and other illnesses; about hospital infections; and about sicknesses you can get from dirty or contaminated food and water (Steli, 2015).
The Global Disease Detection program monitors the health activities of countries and it detect, report and respond to health threats. The correlation between reports is interconnected to allow countries to be aware of outbreakslor diseases that could potentially harm the population (Steli, 2015). The FNP plays a critical role in surveillancelefforts because thelFNP is able to identify, report, and follow up at the local level with populations one-on-one.
References
Randall, Y. & Sanders, H. (2017). Resistance to antibiotics. Journal of Nursing Administration, 26 (14): 132-138.
Steli, A., (2015). Measuring data and surveillance monitoring. Journal of Nursing, 16: 7
