Effect of Educational Intervention on Prescription of Antibiotics by General Dentits in QOM,Iran

 Irational use of antibiotics due to microbial resistance and imposing additional treatment costs on the patient is one of the concerns of the medical experts. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of retraining course on prescribing antibiotics in general dentists of Qom province.

 In this Educational interventional study, the antibiotics prescribed by general dentists in Qom province included 22418 prescriptions in the form of medical insurance and social security in two intervention groups of 67 people (dentists participating in Retraining in February 2017) and control in two three-month periods (November, December and December 2018) and (May, June and July 2018) were investigated.

 The average number of prescriptions prescribed by each dentist in the intervention group before and after retraining was 62.73 and 72.92 respectively (P value = 0.043) and the amount of prescriptions increased after retraining. The average number of prescriptions in the control group before and after retraining was 96.88 and 100.06 respectively (P value = 0.57) and the prescribed prescriptions did not differ significantly from each other. The average number of prescriptions containing antibiotics prescribed by each dentist before retraining in the intervention and control groups were 62.73 ± 95.48 and 96.88 ± 134.56, respectively, and the number of prescription increased after retraining, but there was no significant difference with each other (P=0.09).

 The educational intervention was relatively unsuccessful in reaching its goals. Lack of sufficient motivation, lack of useful and effective teaching methods, lack of participation in discussions can be involved in these results.