How do general practitioners and pharmacists experience antibiotic use in out-of-hours primary care? An exploratory qualitative interview study to inform a participatory action research project.

RATIONALE: Antibiotics (ABs) are one of the most prescribed medications in out-of-hours (OOH) care in Belgium. Developing a better understanding of why ABs are prescribed in this setting is essential to improve prescribing habits.

OBJECTIVES: To assess AB prescribing and dispensing challenges for general practitioners (GPs) and pharmacists in OOH primary care, and to identify context-specific elements that can help the implementation of behaviour change interventions to improve AB prescribing in this setting.

DESIGN: This is an exploratory qualitative study using semistructured interviews. This study is part of a participatory action research project.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Participants include 17 GPs and 1 manager, who work in a Belgian OOH general practitioners cooperative (GPC), and 5 pharmacists of the area covered by the GPC. The GPC serves a population of more than 187 000 people.

RESULTS: GPs feel the threshold to prescribe AB in OOH care is lower in comparion to office hours. GPs and pharmacists talk about the difference in their professional identity in OOH (they define their task differently, they feel more isolated, insecure, have the need to please and so on), type of patients (unknown patients, vulnerable patients, other ethnicities, demanding patients and so on), workload (they feel time-pressured) and lack of diagnostic tools or follow-up. They are aware of the problem of AB overprescribing, but they do not feel ownership of the problem.

CONCLUSION: The implementation of behaviour change interventions to improve AB prescribing in OOH primary care has to take these context specifics into account and could involve interprofessional collaboration between GPs and pharmacists.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03082521; Pre-results.