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RE: RE: Role of rapid diagnostics for viral respiratory infections in antibiotic prescribing decision in the emergency department, by Li et al (2019)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2021

Jing Li ,
S. Lena Kang-Birken ,
Catelynn Kenner  and
Lynn Fitzgibbons
Jing Li
Affiliation:
Cottage Health Research Institute, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Santa Barbara, California
S. Lena Kang-Birken*
Affiliation:
Department of Pharmacy Practice, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Santa Barbara, California Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California
Catelynn Kenner
Affiliation:
Cottage Health Research Institute, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Santa Barbara, California
Lynn Fitzgibbons
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Education, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Santa Barbara, California
*
Author for correspondence: S. Lena Kang-Birne, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Type
Letter in Reply
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 42 , Issue 12 , December 2021 , pp. 1523
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Copyright
© 2021 by The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. All rights reserved

To the Editor—We acknowledge the Letter to the Editor submitted by Rankin et alReference Rankin, Rebeiro, Haddadin, Halasa and Greevy1 and appreciate its unique perspective. We thank Rankin et al for their feedback and emphasis on methodological integrity when making causal inferences.

In the original paper, the intention was to explore and describe associative or correlational factors of a physician’s decision to prescribe antibiotics with a viral respiratory infection confirmed by PCR.Reference Li, Kang-Birken, Mathews, Kenner and Fitzgibbons2 A “table 2 fallacy” occurs when causal modeling is intended but does not account for confounding variables appropriately in the model,Reference Westreich and Greenland3 which does not apply to our study since our study was purely descriptive, with the limitations acknowledged.Reference Li, Kang-Birken, Mathews, Kenner and Fitzgibbons2 We thank Rankin et al again for the comments, and we suggest additional research in the future to investigate causation.

Acknowledgments

Financial support

No financial support was received for the work presented in this letter.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest relevant to this article.

References

Rankin, DA, Rebeiro, PF, Haddadin, Z, Halasa, NB, Greevy, RA. RE: Role of rapid diagnostics for viral respiratory infections in antibiotic prescribing decision in the emergency department, by Li et al (2019). Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2020;41:991–992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, J, Kang-Birken, SL, Mathews, SK, Kenner, CE, Fitzgibbons, LN. Role of rapid diagnostics for viral respiratory infections in antibiotic prescribing decision in the emergency department. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2019;40:974–978.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Westreich, D, Greenland, S. The table 2 fallacy: presenting and interpreting confounder and modifier coefficients. Am J Epidemiol 2013;177:292–298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed