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Current Management of Acute Bronchitis in Ambulatory Care
Donald Benz, MD
Columbia Family Physicians Vancouver, Wash
Arch Fam Med. 1996;5(8):440.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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I read with interest the article1 in the February 1996 issue of the ARCHIVES regarding the treatment of acute bronchitis, inappropriate use of antibiotics, and lack of use of bronchodilators, and the Editorials2,3 that posed the rhetorical question to physicians as to why this is happening.
Let me propose a purely anecdotal response to this. I had read similar reports and for at least 2 years have been using the bronchodilator approach in the treatment of acute bronchitis. The bottom line response is time.
It takes considerable time to explain to a patient the inflammatory nature of acute bronchitis, that most often the cause is viral, and that antibiotics are not necessarily effective. Then it takes considerable time to teach a patient the proper use of a metered-dose inhaler and, after possibly spending as much as half an hour, when we're concluding the visit, the patient asks, "Aren't you
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
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