Clinician's Knowledge and Performance regarding Antibiotics Stewardship

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 B.Sc, in Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mansoura University, Egypt

2 Faculty of Nursing Mansoura University

Abstract

Background: Antibiotic stewardship programs (ASP) improve clinical outcomes, patient safety and help combat
antibiotic resistance. Increasing awareness and practice of Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) has gained immense
importance in hospitals for preventing the irrational use of antibiotics. Clinicians should play a key role in fighting
antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and medical education is a fundamental issue to combat it. Understanding the
knowledge and practices of clinicians regarding antibiotic prescription and antibiotic resistance is important for
controlling irrational antibiotic use. Method. A cross-sectional study design was utilized to accomplish this study. A
convenient sample of 128 clinicians in ICUs, which included 21 clinicians in the general ICU, 24 clinicians in Neonatal
ICUs (NICU) and 83 clinicians in surgical unit at Aga Central Hospital. The researchers used three tools to assess the
demographic and occupational data, knowledge, and performance of clinicians. Results. The study revealed that 73.4%
of the studied clinicians had a poor level of knowledge and 71.9% of them had an incompetent performance level
regarding antibiotics stewardship. Conclusion. Since clinicians had a poor level of knowledge and an incompetent
performance level regarding antibiotics stewardship, it is recommended to design and implement an effective
educational program for clinicians regarding antibiotics stewardship.

Keywords