Imagine a world where a scraped knee or common infections like strep throat have a high chance of becoming fatal.
It’s a frightening future that doctors have been warning about for nearly a hundred years.
But more than one in four Americans — with the best intentions — make a mistake that brings us closer to that reality every day, a new study suggests.
Patients exaggerate their symptoms (or outright lie) to their doctors in order to get antibiotics. The authors of a new study set out to determine exactly how common this is and why it happens.
It’s a first step in avoiding a nightmare scenario in which bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, the drugs designed to kill them, making infections harder, if not impossible, to treat.
“If we do not act, we will face an almost unthinkable scenario in which antibiotics no longer work and we are plunged back into the dark ages of medicine,” former British Prime Minister David Cameron once said.
What the researchers discovered
Nearly 30% of 959 adults admitted to misrepresenting their symptoms to get antibiotics, according to a new study. Most (65.7%) misrepresented symptoms related to a cold, such as a cough or sore throat.
Of these, more than 40% exaggerated their symptoms – such as telling their doctor they had a cough for 2 weeks when they had only had it for 1 week.
About 7% lied about their symptoms, such as saying they had a fever when that was not the case. More than 50% of those who misrepresented their symptoms did both.
Perhaps most intriguing is why people did this. The most common reasons were that they were in pain and wanted something to make their symptoms go away – but also that they needed to return to work or other responsibilities, and they wanted the power to make medical decisions for themselves.
“It’s a difficult situation. People experience unpleasant symptoms and may have a strong feeling that antibiotics are the only thing that can help them feel better,” said author Alistair Thorpe. “Being told to rest and wait is a difficult thing to do, and if you think there’s something that might make you feel better, that’s a very difficult impulse to overcome. »
Being younger, feeling like doctors weren’t taking symptoms seriously, and believing antibiotic resistance is a hoax were all associated with higher odds of misrepresenting symptoms to get antibiotics.
The authors emphasized that they did not want to blame patients: they often have good reasons to misrepresent their symptoms. They also don’t want clinicians to be more suspicious of their patients.
“How can clinicians communicate to patients the importance of not prescribing antibiotics when they will not be effective, how can patients communicate in ways that address their concerns and needs, and how can we help each other better understand each other’s perspectives?” said lead author Angela Fagerlin.
The “dark ages of medicine”
Antibiotic resistance is a global public health problem that raised alarm bells shortly after the discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic.
Overuse or misuse of antibiotics kills susceptible bacteria, leaving resistant ones intact, allowing them to multiply quickly. Over time, antibiotic treatments become less effective against them.
More than 1 million deaths are linked to antimicrobial resistance, and by 2050, this number is expected to reach almost 2 million per year.
A number of bacterial infections are already resistant to some antibiotics, including those caused by MRSA, which can produce painful boils and abscesses, and to certain strains of E. coli. coli and bacteria responsible for tuberculosis and gonorrhea.
Doctors are forced to resort to more powerful, more expensive or more toxic drugs to treat them.
In some regions, hospitals have already had to consider whether to treat cancers, due to the high risk of infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Gn Health
