Background: The evaluation and quality control of antibiotic prescription has become widespread in primary health care (PHC). Most of the studies performed have analyzed the quality of the drug and not the treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of the antibiotic treatments of physicians in a concrete area and identify the most deficient aspects.
Methods: A prospective study was performed with the voluntary participation of general physicians and pediatricians of the PHC area of Osona (Barcelona, Spain) by the collection of a series of data of each antibiotic treatment carried out over 30 days. Consideration of each item to evaluate the quality of a given treatment was carried out by a nominal group.
Results: A total of 1,976 antibiotic treatments were administered by the 44 physicians participating in the study (68% of the target population). The aspect found to be most deficient was that 20% of the doctors prescribed an antibiotic in a diagnosis for which it was not susceptible and in 30% of the susceptible cases the choice of antibiotic was erroneous. The length of treatment was the aspect on posology showing the worst results (27% incorrect). The mean quality following the application of the scale elaborated by the nominal group was 72.6 (SD = 25.7) over a maximum of 100. Lower quality was observed in the pediatricians (p = 0.006), in the physicians working in the reformed network (p < 0.0001), in the prescriptions induced by another physician (p = 0.0001) and in those induced by the patient (p = 0.03).
Conclusions: The number of antibiotics prescribed in non susceptible processes in primary health care should be reduced. Likewise, the choice of antibiotics prescribed should improve.