The PREFIX study

Chest infections are a common reason for people to see their GP. Most such infections are caused by viruses and don’t need antibiotics. However, it can be difficult to tell the difference between viral and bacterial infections. Many patients are therefore prescribed antibiotics unnecessarily. Overuse of antibiotics is leading to a crisis of ‘antibiotic resistance’, where antibiotics no longer work for some infections.

FebriDx ® is a new single-use, hand-held test that uses a tiny ‘finger-prick’ of blood, and within 10 minutes, provides a result that can help clinicians decide whether an infection is likely to be caused by a virus or bacteria. https://www.febridx.com/Home/Europe

This should help clinicians decide when antibiotics are needed, but the test has not been adequately tested in primary care.

We would like to do a study to test whether FebriDx can safely guide antibiotic treatment and reduce the total number of antibiotics prescribed in primary care. However, before we do this, we need to do a smaller ‘feasibility’ study to explore how easy to use the FebriDx test is and, what GPs and patients think of the test, and to help us design a larger future study.

Aims

Explore the possibility of using FebriDx to safely reduce the use of antibiotics for chest infections in primary care.

Explore how feasible it would be to do a large research study in the future using FebriDx in GP practices, and how we should design this study

Methods

We will recruit up to ten GP practices, each given 20-40 FebriDx tests (300 in total). Up to four clinicians per practice will be trained to use the test.

Stage one

Patients with a suspected chest infection who consult a clinician taking part in the study will be invited to participate if their clinician has decided that they are likely to prescribe antibiotics. Following consent, the clinician will record some basic information about the patient and their illness, use the FebriDx test, and then record whether or not they prescribed antibiotics and if they think the test had an effect on their decision.

Stage two

Clinicians and patients (15-20 of each) will be interviewed on how useful they think FebriDx testing is, and how they think we should design a larger future study.

Patient and public involvement

Our PPI contributors took part in a study development meeting, which helped design this study and write this application. The PPI members were very positive and expressed interest in staying-on as PPI collaborators.

Dissemination

The results will be presented at research conferences and published in a scientific journal. A summary will be provided to participants, and the results will be made available via appropriate websites/social media, based on the advice of PPI members.

Amount Awarded: £54,404