Randomisation and trial interventions
UTIs, urinary tract infections
URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS, UTI
General practices were randomly assigned in blocks (1:1), with a block size of four, into the intervention or control group using SAS version 9.4; randomisation was stratified by region. Randomisation lists were generated by the Institute of Clinical Epidemiology and Biometry (University of Wurzburg).The multimodal intervention consisted of guideline recommendations on UTI management for GPs and patients; provision of regional resistance data and feedback that included information about the proportions of individual first line and second line antibiotic prescriptions; benchmarking with regional (practices from the participating federal state) or supra-regional practices (from all participating federal states); and telephone counselling to discuss further questions. Feedback was offered on a quarterly basis (a quarter comprised three months).In preparation for this project, data for regional resistance in uncomplicated urinary tract infections were collected in 136 primary care practices who did not participate in the randomised controlled trial. The resulting 2553 urine samples from women with uncomplicated UTIs were analysed and used to build the database to inform the intervention group on regional resistance data. As a result of expected relevant differences in resistance rates,