Researchers measured symptom severity, antibiotic use and belief in antibiotic effectiveness in patients with acute upper respiratory tract infections.
There was no statistical significance in the difference between average symptom severity for patients who received delayed or no antibiotic prescriptions and patients who received immediate prescriptions, at 1.69 and 1.76, respectively, on a scale from zero to six.
An average of 34 percent of patients with delayed or nonexistent prescriptions used their antibiotics, while 97 percent of patients who received immediate antibiotic prescriptions used them.
Additionally, 71 percent of patients with delayed or no prescriptions believed in the effectiveness of antibiotics, compared to 93 percent of patients receiving immediate prescriptions.
Researchers suggest there is little difference between symptom severity for patients even though patients tend to strongly believe in the effectiveness of antibiotics.
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