Prescribing, care and resistance: antibiotic use in urban South Africa

In South Africa, patients’ and providers’ expectations of transactions in health services converge in consultations for acute respiratory tract infections with the prescription of antibiotics. To explore this, a qualitative study was undertaken at community health centres and private general practice surgeries in four areas of metropolitan South Africa, selected purposively to allow for wide variability in terms of socioeconomic status and ethnicities/race of patient populations. With permission, clinic waiting rooms and patient/provider consultations were observed, and 65 in-depth interviews were undertaken with patients or parents or guardians presenting with children. These interviews were complemented by interviews with health providers (26) and key informants (12). All interviews were recorded, transcribed and imported into NVivo 12 for management. Data were open coded, with individual interviews and observational data compared and contrasted to highlight understandings and practices of care, antibiotic precription and use. In this article, I illustrate how the social context of patient and provider interactions in primary care settings influenced treatment. Community health centres and clinics were (and are) stretched for resources, and there were long wait times before patients can be seen; consultations were brief, with relatively little verbal exchange on the management of coughs and colds. Providers’ decisions of treatment were informed by clinical assessment, concern about the risks of bacterial infection, and perceptions of patient ability to seek further care and advice—a mix of clinical and social considerations. While patients did not always request antibiotics and were willing to discuss how to manage acute conditions without them, doctors in private practice still often provided a prescription, sometimes post-dated to discourage use but with the option for medication if needed. In the public sector, the provision of a prescription also reflected clinicans’ appreciation of economic constraint and vulnerability. As described, patients understood principles of the appropriate use and storage of antibiotics, in contrast to other medications, and they were largely open to discussions with their providers about whether or not to use an antibiotic. However, their own and their prescribing providers had varied understandings of the mechanisms of resistance to antibiotics and so the need for antibiotic stewardship.