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Variability of antibiotic prescribing in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations: a cohort study

Boggon, R; Hubbard, R; Smeeth, L; Gulliford, M; Cassell, J; Eaton, S; Pirmohamed, M; (2013) Variability of antibiotic prescribing in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations: a cohort study. BMC Pulmonary Medicine , 13 (1) , Article 32. 10.1186/1471-2466-13-32. Green open access

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Abstract

Background: The role of antibiotics in treating mild or moderate exacerbations in patients with acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is unclear. The aims were to: (i) describe patient characteristics associated with acute exacerbations amongst a representative COPD population, (ii) explore the relationship between COPD severity and outcomes amongst patients with exacerbations, and (iii) quantify variability by general practice in prescribing of antibiotics for COPD exacerbations. Method: A cohort of 62,747 patients with COPD was identified from primary care general practices (GP) in England, and linked to hospital admission and death certificate data. Exacerbation cases were matched to three controls and characteristics compared using conditional logistic regression. Outcomes were compared using incidence rates and Cox regression, stratified by disease severity. Variability of prescribing at the GP level was evaluated graphically and by using multilevel models. Results: COPD severity was found to be associated with exacerbation and subsequent mortality (very severe vs. mild, odds ratio for exacerbation 2.12 [95%CI 19.5 – 2.32]), hazard ratio for mortality 2.14 [95%CI 1.59 – 2.88]). Whilst 61% of exacerbation cases were prescribed antibiotics, this proportion varied considerably between GP practices (interquartile range, 48 – 73%). This variation is greater than can be explained by patient characteristics alone. Conclusions: There is significant variability between GP practices in the prescribing of antibiotics to COPD patients experiencing exacerbations. Combined with a lack of evidence on the effects of treatment, this supports the need and opportunity for a large scale pragmatic randomised trial of the prescribing of antibiotics for COPD patients with exacerbations, in order to clarify their effectiveness and long term outcomes whilst ensuring the representativeness of subjects.

Type: Article
Title: Variability of antibiotic prescribing in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations: a cohort study
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/1471-2466-13-32
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2466-13-32
Language: English
Additional information: © 2013 Boggon et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
Keywords: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Disease exacerbation, Clinical practice variation, Anti-bacterial agents, Primary health care, General practice
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health > Infection and Population Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1449828
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