Tailoring antibiotic audit and feedback according to dentists’ needs

Twelve percent of all dental antibiotic prescriptions in BC are for clindamycin, a drug with considerable risk of adverse effects compared with alternatives. Good dental outcomes are achieved with much lower use of that drug in Australia (5 percent), and the UK (0.5 percent). Prescribing clindamycin endangers patient safety due to higher rates of Clostridium difficile infections, increases the risk of resistance, and should only be used when no better option is available. Audit and feedback interventions have decreased antibiotic prescribing rates in various settings, but experience with its use in dental prescribing is limited. Further, there is growing evidence that strategies informed by behavioral theory may be more effective and should be explored. Focus groups will provide an understanding of the current challenges in dental prescribing and test the responses on audit and feedback as well as the planned and alternative behavioral interventions. This would enable tailoring the audit and feedback according to the dentists’ needs making the intervention more relevant to the receivers and more effective.

Team members: Sade Stenlund (BCCDC); Fawziah Lalji (UBC – Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences); Clifford Pau (UBC – Faculty of Dentistry); Mamun Abdullah (BCCDC); Nick Smith (BCCDC); Max Xie (BCCDC); Lynsey Hamilton (BCCDC); Kirstin Appelt (Sauder School of Business); Dana Stanley (UBC – Therapeutics Initiative); Anat Fisher (UBC Therapeutics Initiative); Sophie Y. Wang (University of Hamburg).