Journal of Infectious Diseases & Preventive Medicine
Open Access

Abstract

Impact of Stewardship Intervention on Improving Antibiotic Prescribing Practices

Mohamad Ibrahim and Zeinab Bazzi

Background: Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) have been found to be an effective method for minimizing antibiotic misuse.

Method: A study comparing the quality of antibiotic prescriptions between a one-year period before ASP implementation and a one-year period after its implementation. For each period, antimicrobial prescriptions were evaluated by an antimicrobial stewardship team and classified as appropriate or inappropriate.

Results: An improvement between Phase I and Phase II was found in all antibiotic therapies.

Discussion: The overall antibiotic inappropriate rate was 45.8% before implemented the stewardship program, which is relatively high and consistent with the findings of other studies mentioned in the literature.

Conclusion: Applying the stewardship program led to a significant decrease of the inappropriate use of antibiotics at the hospital.