Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

The inappropriate use of antibiotics contributes to the problem of antibiotic resistance, where some bacteria that cause infections are becoming resistant to the medications we use to treat them. In an effort to improve appropriate antibiotic use, we mailed out personalized feedback to physicians in BC describing their use of antibiotics to treat patients diagnosed with certain kinds of infections. The feedback included a comparison to their peers, and to guidelines. This feedback was anonymous, so that only the physician saw his or her own information. The project proposed here will evaluate the effect of this feedback on improving antibiotic use in BC, using rigorous statistical methods that allow us to understand the short and long-term impact of this intervention. Understanding how this program impacted antibiotic use will help us to design effective interventions in this and other areas in the future.