Thornley, T;
Marshall, G;
Howard, P;
Wilson, APR;
(2016)
A feasibility service evaluation of screening and treatment of group A streptococcal pharyngitis in community pharmacies.
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
, 71
(11)
pp. 3293-3299.
10.1093/jac/dkw264.
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Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The UK 5 year antimicrobial resistance strategy recognizes the role of point-of-care diagnostics to identify where antimicrobials are required, as well as to assess the appropriateness of the diagnosis and treatment. A sore throat test-and-treat service was introduced in 35 community pharmacies across two localities in England during 2014–15. METHODS: Trained pharmacy staff assessed patients presenting with a sore throat using the Centor scoring system and patients meeting three or all four of the criteria were offered a throat swab test for Streptococcus pyogenes, Lancefield group A streptococci. Patients with a positive throat swab test were offered antibiotic treatment. RESULTS: Following screening by pharmacy staff, 149/367 (40.6%) patients were eligible for throat swab testing. Of these, only 36/149 (24.2%) were positive for group A streptococci. Antibiotics were supplied to 9.8% (n¼36/367) of all patients accessing the service. Just under half of patients that were not showing signs of a bacterial infection (60/123, 48.8%) would have gone to their general practitioner if the service had not been available. CONCLUSIONS: This study has shown that it is feasible to deliver a community-pharmacy-based screening and treatment service using point-of-care testing. This type of service has the potential to support the antimicrobial resistance agenda by reducing unnecessary antibiotic use and inappropriate antibiotic consumption.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A feasibility service evaluation of screening and treatment of group A streptococcal pharyngitis in community pharmacies |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/jac/dkw264 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1093/jac/dkw264 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | # The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com |
| Keywords: | Antibiotics; streptococcus pyogenes; drug resistance; microbial; pharmacies; physicians; family; streptococcus; infection; diagnosis; pharmacy (field); sore throat; streptococcal; antimicrobials; appropriateness; sore throat; throat swab; point-of-care testing; community community pharmacies; agenda |
| UCL classification: | UCL 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 Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Infection and Immunity |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1544105 |
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