General Practitioners’ experience on Bacterial Skin Infections – Voice your opinion

Treatment and management of skin infections are immensely challenging with the rise of superbugs. The prevalence of bacterial skin infections like impetigo is reported to be highest among remote Aboriginal communities in Australia, but the recent data from other Australian communities is limited.

The impetigo research team at the Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, is determined to address this issue head-on. Our team's recent work involved a seminal systematic review of emerging treatment strategies for impetigo. This work identified the limited effective treatments for impetigo and highlighted the need for alternative antimicrobials. It also laid the platform for laboratory-based studies exploring novel agents to treat impetigo.

Subsequently, we conducted a nationwide, cross-sectional survey to examine Australian mothers' treatment experiences and perceptions towards impetigo in children. This study revealed that most infected kids had been excluded from school, and about half had experienced disease sequelae. A group of parents also reported treatment dissatisfaction with the current treatment options.

Bacterial skin infections are common in Australia; they affect about one-in-four Australians at any given time and impose a high burden on society and the economy.

However, the issue has never been looked at through the lens of frontline healthcare professionals. Nevertheless, the apparent need to investigate this from the Australian General Practitioners' (GPs) point of view has been highlighted in many studies.

Therefore, we designed a survey to explore GPs' consultations, treatment choices and management of bacterial skin infections with a primary focus on impetigo.

We cordially invite all the Australian GPs' with more than one year of experience to share your experience with us through this anonymous link here.

For further information or if you have any questions

• Associate Professor Jackson Thomas (Principal Investigator) jackson.thomas@canberra.edu.au
• Ms Dhakshila Niyangoda at dhakshila.niyangoda@canberra.edu.au

Links to our past and current work (Emerging treatment strategies for impetigo in endemic and nonendemic settings: A systematic review)

‘Impetigo, Treatment and Management: A nationwide, cross sectional survey of Australian mothers’ experiences and perceptions’ is in the final stage of manuscript preparation.