Prescription Strategies in Acute Uncomplicated Respiratory Infections: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Delayed antibiotic prescription helps to reduce antibiotic use with reasonable symptom control. There are different strategies of delayed prescription, but it is not yet clear which one is the most effective.

Objective: To determine the efficacy and safety of 2 delayed strategies in acute, uncomplicated respiratory infections.

Rationale, design and organization of the delayed antibiotic prescription (DAP) trial: a randomized controlled trial of the efficacy and safety of delayed antibiotic prescribing strategies in the non-complicated acute respiratory tract infections in general practice.

Background: Respiratory tract infections are an important burden in primary care and it's known that they are usually self-limited and that antibiotics only alter its course slightly. This together with the alarming increase of bacterial resistance due to increased use of antimicrobials calls for a need to consider strategies to reduce their use. One of these strategies is the delayed prescription of antibiotics.