I found this to be pretty true while Living in Australia. I was always surprised at how cavalier doctors were about giving these out. I think it stems from two things - one is what they quoted in the article, that there's a "cultural expectation in Australia that there’s a pill or a tablet for every problem". People who go to the doctor expect a solution.
I suspect the other thing is how often Australians go to the doctor. Americans tend to be pretty hesitant to see doctors due to pricing of health care. In Australia, if you're sick, you go to the doctor. This is true even for common colds. Some stats, in 2010 Americans saw the doctor on average around 3.9 times a year (and this number is on a downward trend from the previous survey)[0]. In Australia this number is a bit harder to break down. Some politicians have cited that on average people see a doctor 11 times a year. Medicare stats breakdowns put that number at somewhere closer to 7[1]. Either way, it's a significant increase in comparison to Americans. It's more common to go see the doctor.
Unfortunately the article doesn't cite their sources here. One thing I'd be very curious about is what percentage of doctor visits result in antibiotics when comparing Australia vs the United States. My hypothesis is that despite cultural pressures, it may actually be that prescription rates per visit are quite similar between the two countries, and it's just that Australians seen the doctor more often.
I think any such stats are so heavily weighted towards elderly and pregnant (/newborn) people, they almost don't make sense to consider when talking about a general population.
Whether it's 7 or 11, I don't know anyone middle-aged (20-50) anywhere near that number.
I found this when living in Thailand, where it was difficult to walk out of a Doctors without a prescription for a drug and a collection supporting medications like anti-mucus and pain killers, I think because the hospitals accessible to foreigners were private and made bank on the pharmacy. Not that we saw the GP for most infections, common in that atmosphere, instead just buying antibiotics over the counter as needed. Here in regional Australia, maybe we just hit a good GP, and in the rare cases we get to actually see them never prescribes antibiotics unless pretty darn sure it is an infection. And of course we can't just get them over the counter, as even pharmacists apparently can't be trusted to prescribe them even if the green snot is visibly pooling behind your eyes.
So if Australia is top of the list, I'd certainly want to know more about the sources of the data. If hospitals have started giving out prophylactic antibiotics, that for example would skew the statistics and help identify the source of the problem.
Hah, I wonder how people do it. The past few times I wanted to see my GP the appointments had lead times of 6 weeks or more. And they weren't bulk-billed.
I'd joke that by then the issue would have either gone away or I'd be dead.
I don't have the reference handy, but I read a study of US healthcare which found patient satisfaction to be highly correlated with whether they got a prescription at the end of an office visit. With a prescription the patients felt like they were getting their money's worth.
Does Australia have as much problem with medical tort lawsuits as the States?
How about healthcare? Single-payer or is it the wild West like America where if you don't have health insurance, you're stuffed with arbitrary debt and bankruptcy at random?
Leers at the UK with their fancy-pants NHS that even those on the right of politics mostly defend.
I find that report itself a little strange. Most gp are not associated with hospitals (at least near me). So I wonder if that skews the statistics. I only go to the hospital when I'm having major surgery.
I suspect the other thing is how often Australians go to the doctor. Americans tend to be pretty hesitant to see doctors due to pricing of health care. In Australia, if you're sick, you go to the doctor. This is true even for common colds. Some stats, in 2010 Americans saw the doctor on average around 3.9 times a year (and this number is on a downward trend from the previous survey)[0]. In Australia this number is a bit harder to break down. Some politicians have cited that on average people see a doctor 11 times a year. Medicare stats breakdowns put that number at somewhere closer to 7[1]. Either way, it's a significant increase in comparison to Americans. It's more common to go see the doctor.
Unfortunately the article doesn't cite their sources here. One thing I'd be very curious about is what percentage of doctor visits result in antibiotics when comparing Australia vs the United States. My hypothesis is that despite cultural pressures, it may actually be that prescription rates per visit are quite similar between the two countries, and it's just that Australians seen the doctor more often.
[0] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/health_car... [1] https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/doc...