NCT03862794: CMO2018-9

CMO Letter to Reduce Unnecessary Antibiotic Prescribing and Broad Spectrum Prescribing Winter 2018-9

Completed NA Last updated 3 March 2020

What this trial tests

NA trial testing new social norm feedback letter with bar chart in Prescribing, Off-Label in 7,000 participants. Completed in 30 May 2019.

Timeline

1 November 2018

Primary endpoint
30 April 2019

30 May 2019

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Public Health England
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	none
Primary purpose	other
Enrollment	7,000
Start date	1 November 2018
Primary completion	30 April 2019
Estimated completion	30 May 2019
Sites	1 location across United Kingdom

Drugs / interventions tested

• new social norm feedback letter with bar chart
• standard social norm feedback letter

Conditions studied

• Prescribing, Off-Label — all drugs for Prescribing, Off-Label →

Sponsor

Public Health England — full company profile →

Who can join

Eligibility, any sex, with Prescribing, Off-Label. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

This trial aims to reduce unnecessary prescription of antibiotics and broad spectrum antibiotics by general practitioners (GPs) in England. Unnecessary prescriptions are defined as those that do not improve patient health outcomes. The intervention is to send GPs a letter from the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) that gives feedback on their practice's prescribing levels. Specifically the sample was GPs whose practices whose prescribed more than 1.161 items per STAR-PU or whose practices prescribed more that .965 items per STAR-PU and greater than 10% broad spectrum items. The intervention groups received a letter telling them they are among the highest prescribers of either their total or broad spectrum antibiotics, with a graph showing their prescribing compared to average prescribing ("their peers"). The letter also contained a leaflet to help GPs discuss self-care advice with patients and some advice to use delayed prescriptions. The investigators hypothesize that the antibiotic prescribing rate in will be lower for the treatment group compared to the control group, following the receipt of the letter.

Publications & conference data

1 peer-reviewed publication reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Using text and charts to provide social norm feedback to general practices with high overall and high broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribing: a series of national randomised controlled trials.
   Gold N, Sallis A, Saei A, Arambepola R, et al · · 2022 · cited 4× · PMID 35717262 · DOI 10.1186/s13063-022-06373-y