[Rational use of antibiotics. Reality on the ground of the general medicine]

General practitioners, central to Belgian healthcare, can have an impact on its cost, e.g. by rationalising the prescription of antibiotics. Among the tools enabling them to reach this objective, and thus also influencing the decrease in resistance, one finds good practice recommendations. However, the reality of work on the field leads general practitioners to take their global knowledge of their patients into account. Moreover, the diagnostic and therapeutic approach which is specific to primary care does not always allow for a strict application of these recommendations. Patient and society pressure is another factor general practitioners are confronted with. An intensification of continuous training, a greater front line collaboration in establishing guidelines, an improvement in quick diagnosis tests and the maintenance of a privileged dialogue with patients are the way forward to improve the present situation, Belgium being for the moment one of the European leaders in antibiotics prescribing.