Use of Behavioral Economics to Improve Treatment of Acute Respiratory Infections (Pilot Study)
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01454960. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
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Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Bacteria resistant to antibiotic therapy are a major public health problem. The evolution of multi-drug resistant pathogens may be encouraged by provider prescribing behavior. Inappropriate use of antibiotics for nonbacterial infections and overuse of broad spectrum antibiotics can lead to the development of resistant strains. Though providers are adequately trained to know when antibiotics are and are not comparatively effective, this has not been sufficient to affect critical provider practices. The intent of this study is to apply behavioral economic theory to reduce the rate of antibiotic prescriptions for acute respiratory diagnoses for which guidelines do not call for antibiotics. Specifically targeted are infections that are likely to be viral. The objective of this study is to improve provider decisions around treatment of acute respiratory infections. The participants are practicing attending physicians or advanced practice nurses (i.e. providers) at participating clinics who see acute respiratory infection patients. A maximum of 550 participants will be recruited for this study. Providers consenting to participate will fill out a baseline questionnaire online. Subsequent to baseline data collection and enrollment, participating clinic sites will be randomized to the study arms, as described below. There will be a control arm, with clinic sites randomized in a multifactorial design to up to three interventions that leverage the electronic medical record: Order Sets that are triggered by EHR workflow containing exclusively guideline concordant choices (SA, for Suggested Alternatives); Accountable Justification (AJ) triggered by discordant prescriptions that populate the note with provider's rationale for guideline exceptions ; and performance feedback that benchmarks providers' own performance to that of their peers (PC, for Peer Comparison). The outcomes of interest are antibiotic prescribing patterns, including prescribing rates and changes in prescribing rates over time. The intervention period will be over one year, with a one-year follow up period to measure persistence of the effect after EHR features are returned to the original state and providers no longer receive email alerts.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01454960
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 28 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Interventions
- Clinical Decision Support: Accountable Justification Behavioral
- Audit and Feedback: Peer Comparison Behavioral
- CDS Order Sets: Suggested Alternatives Behavioral
Behavioral
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Jun 30, 2011
- Primary completion
- Jan 31, 2013
- Completion
- Aug 31, 2014
- Last update posted
- Apr 3, 2017
2011 – 2014
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation General Internal Medicine Clinic | Chicago | Illinois | 60611-2923 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01454960, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Apr 3, 2017 · Synced Sep 4, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01454960 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.