Sore throat management in general practice

Abstract

This paper discusses primary care management of sore throat in the context of recent national 'consensus' guidelines from the Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin. The guidelines advise taking a throat swab, using typical clinical features where swabs are not available, and suggest that antibiotics shorten the duration of symptoms and prevent complications. Systematic reviews and individual studies indicate that the evidence for prescribing antibiotics for most presentations of sore throat in general practice is marginal, and the benefits are probably outweighed by the likely costs of antibiotics. Using clinical scorecards or symptom clusters to identify individuals who would benefit from treatment is insensitive with low predictive value, although inexpensive. Using throat swabs as a gold standard for diagnosis is inappropriate since they are neither very specific nor sensitive, and will greatly increase costs of management. The relative lack of evidence for the efficacy of antibiotics and for the use of throat swabs from primary care research, and also an unbalanced perspective of dangers and complications related predominantly to a secondary care setting, underlines the problem of achieving valid consensus guidelines. Guidelines not firmly based on evidence appropriate to the intended setting are more likely to be received sceptically and hinder getting research into practice.