Open Forum Infectious Diseases<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe research team surveyed 1,475 people across the country on their attitudes about antibiotic course length. They asked participants whether they\u2019d feel more comfortable taking a three- to five-day course of antibiotics if they had pneumonia, as is recommended by current guidelines, or if they\u2019d prefer an antibiotic course of a week or more, which is recommended by outdated guidelines. While shorter courses of antibiotics are as effective and safer for pneumonia than longer ones, about 60% of people says they\u2019d rather take the longer course.<\/p>\n
One of the main reasons people gave for preferring longer antibiotic courses was that they had been told to \u201calways finish their antibiotic course\u201d\u201488% of respondents had heard of, and agreed with, this common mantra. Most had been told this by their clinician, and many had also heard it via a public health campaign.<\/p>\n
A strong body of scientific evidence shows that, for many common infections, shorter courses of antibiotics work as well as longer courses and are less likely to cause side effects. Still, there are some cases, like tuberculosis, where longer courses are most effective.<\/p>\n
The study authors suggest that doctors and public health campaigns use several evidence-informed strategies to better communicate the complex reality of antibiotic course length\u2014for instance, avoiding overly simplistic claims that either shorter or longer courses are universally better, and acknowledging that as scientific evidence accumulates over time, health recommendations can change.<\/p>\n
To patients who have been prescribed antibiotics, Thorpe recommends having an open conversation with your doctor about the appropriate course length and adherence plan to get health advice that\u2019s specific to your situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cDiscuss with your clinician what the right duration is for you and when the right time is to stop your course,\u201d Thorpe says.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting advice directly from a clinician on a one-to-one basis about what is most appropriate for you in that situation is the right way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thorpe emphasizes that the changing recommendations are a positive outcome of increasing knowledge.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvidence is growing and guidance is evolving on antibiotic use, which is a normal process and a good sign that we are working to improve how we provide care,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur knowledge about how best to use antibiotics has changed, but it has changed because we\u2019re learning more, and it\u2019s important that we make sure we are communicating this well to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
The work was supported by the Jon M. Huntsman Presidential Endowed Chair of the population health sciences department at the University of Utah, internal research funds from the internal medicine department at the University of Utah, and from the medicine department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the American Heart Association.<\/p>\n
Content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.<\/p>\n
Source: University of Utah<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Share this Article You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. \u201cAlways finish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[6928,49,48,84,377],"class_list":["post-865477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-antibiotics","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}