Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun 24;2(1):e102.
doi: 10.1017/ash.2022.242. eCollection 2022.

A qualitative approach to examining antimicrobial prescribing in the outpatient dental setting

Ashley M Hughes  1   2 , Charlesnika T Evans  2   3 , Margaret A Fitzpatrick  2   4 , Ibuola O Kale  2 , Amanda Vivo  2 , Taylor L Boyer  5 , Pooja A Solanki  2 , Gretchen Gibson  6 , M Marianne Jurasic  7   8 , Lisa K Sharp  9 , Kelly L Echevarria  10 , Katie J Suda  5   11
Affiliations

A qualitative approach to examining antimicrobial prescribing in the outpatient dental setting

Ashley M Hughes et al. Antimicrob Steward Healthc Epidemiol. .

Abstract

Objective: To understand barriers and facilitators to evidence-based prescribing of antibiotics in the outpatient dental setting.

Design: Semistructured interviews.

Setting: Outpatient dental setting.

Participants: Dentists from 40 Veterans' Health Administration (VA) facilities across the United States.

Methods: Dentists were identified based on their prescribing patterns and were recruited to participate in a semistructured interview on perceptions toward prescribing. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and double-coded for analysis, with high reliability between coders. We identified general trends using the theoretical domains framework and mapped overarching themes onto the behavior change wheel to identify prospective interventions that improve evidence-based prescribing.

Results: In total, 90 dentists participated in our study. The following barriers and facilitators to evidence-based prescribing emerged as impacts on a dentist's decision making on prescribing an antibiotic: access to resources, social influence of peers and other care providers, clinical judgment, beliefs about consequences, local features of the clinic setting, and beliefs about capabilities.

Conclusions: Findings from this work reveal the need to increase awareness of up-to-date antibiotic prescribing behaviors in dentistry and may inform the best antimicrobial stewardship interventions to support dentists' ongoing professional development and improve evidence-based prescribing.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Recruitment flow diagram.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Behavior change wheel.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Recommended Interventions
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Antibiotic resistance. World Health Organization website. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antibiotic-resistance. Published online July 31, 2020. Accessed November 15, 2021.
    1. Tamma PD, Aitken SL, Bonomo RA, Mathers AJ, van Duin D, Clancy CJ. IDSA Guidance on the treatment of antimicrobial-resistant gram-negative infections: version 1.0. Infectious Diseases Society of America website. https://www.idsociety.org/globalassets/idsa/practice-guidelines/amr-guid.... Published online September 8, 2020. Accessed January 9, 2022.
    1. Fleming-Dutra KE, Hersh AL, Shapiro DJ, et al. Prevalence of inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions among US ambulatory care visits, 2010–2011. JAMA 2016;315:1864. - PubMed
    1. Lee GC, Reveles KR, Attridge RT, et al. Outpatient antibiotic prescribing in the United States: 2000 to 2010. BMC Med 2014;12:96. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Thompson W, Teoh L, Hubbard CC, et al. Patterns of dental antibiotic prescribing in 2017: Australia, England, United States, and British Columbia (Canada). Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2022;43:191–198. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources