Research
PASS research supports the development of antibiotic stewardship interventions tailored to: general practice, hospitals, care homes, and the community.
- The Bug Watch study collected data a cohort of household residents in England
- Participants recorded common infection symptoms and use of healthcare services
- Bug Watch data tell us how often people go to the doctor and take antibiotics for their symptoms.
Primary care
- General practice is often the first point of consultation for patients with signs of infection
- Three out of four of antibiotics in the UK are prescribed by general practitioners
- Reducing antibiotic prescribing in this setting can significantly reduce the population-wide exposure to antibiotics, but interventions in this setting have not been reviewed systematically.
Secondary care
- Hospitals are responsible for 20% of the overall antibiotic use in the UK
- They play a critical role in the acquisition and antibiotic resistance and its export to community settings
- Despite antibiotic stewardship programmes being well established in UK hospitals, there is still evidence of antibiotic overuse.
Care homes
- Care homes have a strong focus on preventing and controlling infection
- Antibiotic stewardship programmes are not common in care homes
- Care homes represent an important setting for research to optimise antibiotic use.
Publications
Crayton, E., Richardson, M., Fuller, C., Smith, C., Liu, S., Forbes, G., Anderson, N., Shallcross, L., Michie, S., Hayward, A., & Lorencatto, F. (2020). Interventions to improve appropriate antibiotic prescribing in long-term care facilities: A systematic review. BMC Geriatrics, 20(1), 237. DOI: 10.1186/s12877-020-01564-1
Dutey-Magni, P. F., Gill, M. J., McNulty, D., Sohal, G., Hayward, A., & Shallcross, L. (2021). Feasibility study of hospital antimicrobial stewardship analytics using electronic health records. JAC-Antimicrobial Resistance, 3(1). DOI: 10.1093/jacamr/dlab018
McCall, B., Shallcross, L., Wilson, M., Fuller, C., & Hayward, A. (2019). Storytelling as a research tool and intervention around public health perceptions and behaviour: a protocol for a systematic narrative review. BMJ Open, 9(12), e030597. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-030597
Rockenschaub, P., Jhass, A., Freemantle, N., Aryee, A., Rafiq, M., Hayward, A., & Shallcross, L. (2019). Opportunities to reduce antibiotic prescribing for patients with COPD in primary care: a cohort study using electronic health records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. DOI: 10.1093/jac/dkz411
Rockenschaub, P., Hayward, A., & Shallcross, L. (2019). Antibiotic prescribing before and after the diagnosis of comorbidity: a cohort study using primary care electronic health records. Clinical Infectious Diseases. DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciz1016
Shallcross, L., Lorencatto, F., Fuller, C., Tarrant, C., West, J., Traina, R., … PASS Research Group (2020). An interdisciplinary mixed-methods approach to developing antimicrobial stewardship interventions: Protocol for the Preserving Antibiotics through Safe Stewardship (PASS) Research Programme [version 1: awaiting peer review]. Wellcome Open Research, 5(8). DOI: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15554.1
Shallcross, L., Rockenschaub, P., Blackburn, R., Nazareth, I., Freemantle, N., & Hayward, A. (2020). Antibiotic prescribing for lower UTI in elderly patients in primary care and risk of bloodstream infection: A cohort study using electronic health records in England. PLOS Medicine, 17(9), e1003336. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003336
Smith, C. M., Conolly, A., Fuller, C., Hill, S., Lorencatto, F., Marcheselli, F., … Fragaszy, E. B. (2019). Symptom reporting, healthcare-seeking behaviour and antibiotic use for common infections: protocol for Bug Watch, a prospective community cohort study. BMJ Open, 9(5), e028676. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028676
Smith, C. M., Williams, H., Jhass, A., Patel, S., Crayton, E., Lorencatto, F., Michie, S., Hayward, A. C., & Shallcross, L. J. (2020). Antibiotic prescribing in UK care homes 2016–2017: Retrospective cohort study of linked data. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), 555. DOI: 10.1186/s12913-020-05422-z
Smith, C., Hayward, A., Fragaszy, E., Michie, S. (2020). Bug Watch: Baseline Data, Symptom Reporting, Healthcare-seeking Behaviours and Antibiotic Use, 2018-2019. [data collection]. UK Data Service. SN: 8734. DOI: 10.5255/UKDA-SN-8734-1
Smith, C. M., Shallcross, L. J., Dutey-Magni, P., Conolly, A., Fuller, C., Hill, S., Jhass, A., Marcheselli, F., Michie, S., Mindell, J. S., Ridd, M. J., Tsakos, G., Hayward, A. C., & Fragaszy, E. B. (2021). Incidence, healthcare-seeking behaviours, antibiotic use and natural history of common infection syndromes in England: Results from the Bug Watch community cohort study. BMC Infectious Diseases, 21(1), 105. DOI: 10.1186/s12879-021-05811-7
