IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0215480.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Medical prescribing and antibiotic resistance: A game-theoretic analysis of a potentially catastrophic social dilemma

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew M Colman
  • Eva M Krockow
  • Edmund Chattoe-Brown
  • Carolyn Tarrant

Abstract

The availability of antibiotics presents medical practitioners with a prescribing dilemma. On the one hand, antibiotics provide a safe and effective treatment option for patients with bacterial infections, but at a population level, over-prescription reduces their effectiveness by facilitating the evolution of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotic medication. A game-theoretic investigation, including analysis of equilibrium strategies, evolutionarily stability, and replicator dynamics, reveals that rational doctors, motivated to attain the best outcomes for their own patients, will prescribe antibiotics irrespective of the level of antibiotic resistance in the population and the behavior of other doctors, although they would achieve better long-term outcomes if their prescribing were more restrained. Ever-increasing antibiotic resistance may therefore be inevitable unless some means are found of modifying the payoffs of this potentially catastrophic social dilemma.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew M Colman & Eva M Krockow & Edmund Chattoe-Brown & Carolyn Tarrant, 2019. "Medical prescribing and antibiotic resistance: A game-theoretic analysis of a potentially catastrophic social dilemma," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-13, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0215480
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0215480
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0215480
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0215480&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0215480?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Travis C Porco & Daozhou Gao & James C Scott & Eunha Shim & Wayne T Enanoria & Alison P Galvani & Thomas M Lietman, 2012. "When Does Overuse of Antibiotics Become a Tragedy of the Commons?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-12, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lu Gram & Rolando Granados & Eva M. Krockow & Nayreen Daruwalla & David Osrin, 2021. "Modelling collective action to change social norms around domestic violence: social dilemmas and the role of altruism," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Niklas Harring & Eva M. Krockow, 2021. "The social dilemmas of climate change and antibiotic resistance: an analytic comparison and discussion of policy implications," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Albert, Jason, 2021. "Strategic dynamics of antibiotic use and the evolution of antibiotic-resistant infections," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0215480. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.