A recent study reveals that many patients aren’t above telling a little fib to get their preferred medication.
Researchers at the University of Utah and other institutions conducted a survey of people across the country. More than a quarter of respondents admitted to lying during a doctor’s visit in order to be prescribed antibiotics, they found. Unfortunately, these lies aren’t so harmless, since they can contribute to unneeded side effects, inappropriate antibiotic use, and the growing problem of drug-resistant bacteria, the researchers say.
“These findings signal a significant issue for health professionals making antibiotic prescribing decisions and for the fields of antimicrobial stewardship and public health,” they wrote in their paper, published Friday in JAMA Network Open.
A common deception
Antibiotics have immensely changed medicine for the better since their discovery almost a century ago. These drugs effectively treat and prevent all sorts of bacterial infections, making everything from chemotherapy to caesarean section deliveries safer.
That said, antibiotics should be treated as a precious resource, used only when absolutely necessary. This means we typically shouldn’t use them for mild infections that will clear up on their own nor for illnesses that are likely viral in nature (antibiotics don’t work against viruses). Sadly, studies have already found that doctors tend to overprescribe antibiotics in these situations, and when asked why, they’ll often cite wanting to meet the expectations of their patients.
According to the study researchers, however, there’s been less focus on how patients are communicating with doctors in these visits and if or how often they might be misrepresenting their symptoms.
For this new study, the team partnered with Dynata, a commercial market research company, to conduct an online survey. The survey used demographic quotas to ensure a sample that was representative across age, gender, and U.S. census regions, the researchers wrote. It enrolled roughly 1,000 participants age 18 and older.
All told, about 28% reported ever misrepresenting their symptoms to a doctor to get antibiotics. Of those who admitted to lying, 40% said they did so by exaggerating the severity or length of their illness; 7% said they simply made up fake symptoms; and around 53% said they did both.
When asked why, the most common reasons included believing that antibiotics would work well, that they needed to get to their responsibilities as soon as possible, and wanting autonomy in how they were treated. The most common factors linked to antibiotic lying were being younger (ages 18 to 33), feeling that doctors didn’t take their symptoms seriously enough, and disbelieving that antibiotic resistance is real, among others.
A not-so-white lie
Of course, antibiotic resistance is a very serious issue.
Over time, many bacteria have adapted to the most common antibiotics used against them, forcing us to develop and use newer ones in response. Humanity is now starting to lose this escalating arms race, and drug-resistant bacteria (and fungi) have emerged as one of the gravest public health threats of our time. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that superbugs are killing roughly 50,000 Americans a year, and by 2050, such infections worldwide could surpass the annual death toll of cancer. Though there has been some success in curbing certain drug-resistant infections, thanks in part to better management of antibiotics by doctors and hospitals, society at large is still massively overusing these drugs.
Drug resistance aside, antibiotics aren’t without their direct risks either. People who unnecessarily use antibiotics can experience side effects and complications like other infections linked to antibiotic overuse, such as Clostridioides difficile (broad-spectrum antibiotics can harm the healthy bacteria in our gut, allowing C. difficile to stir up trouble), the researchers note. And oftentimes, these drugs are even completely worthless, such as for upper respiratory infections, a.k.a. the common cold, since they’re usually caused by viruses.
All of which is to say: as innocent as it may seem to fudge the truth here and there to get some antibiotics, it comes with a real cost.
