Data analysis
sore throat, fever
REGRESSION, SORE THROAT
Data were analyzed with SPSS and STATA. The characteristics of practices, GPs and patients were analyzed descriptively. Study arms were compared with the ChiThe primary outcome measure, antibiotic prescription rate, was compared pairwise between study arms by 95% confidence intervals (exact binomial distribution). The comparison between all three study arms was carried out with the ChiSecondary outcome measures were analyzed descriptively. The ChiIn order to adjust for imbalance between study arms, mixed effects logistic regression analyses were performed with the target variables antibiotic prescription (models 1 and 2) and advice to take analgesics (model 3) and the following control variables: study-group, GP gender, age, activity in undergraduate medical education, and specialization in natural medicine, patient gender, age, severity of sore throat and general impairment, fever, wish to get a relieving remedy, and wish to get an antibiotic. As random effect the practice-ID was included in the models. In model 2, the variables used in model 1 were supplemented by the Centor or McIsaac score (≤ 2 or ≥ 3). However, this analysis was only possible for the intervention groups because no scores were determined in the UC-group. The results of the multivariate regression analyses are presented as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals.