Background In spite of increasing antibiotic resistance, current development of antibiotics is very limited. Therefore, it is important to treat patients with severe infectious soon and correctly, as well as to avoid antibiotic use in patients where it is not indicated.

Purpose To analyse the impact on antibiotic prescribing of an awareness campaign for optimisation of antibiotic use conducted in a hospital setting using the ‘programme for antibiotic use optimisation’ (PROA).

Material and methods The campaign was carried out in two working lines that were repeated over two periods: June 2015 and December 2015. Firstly, patients receiving antibiotic treatment were filtered at days 6 and 9 of their therapies using Unidosis-Farmatools (a tool for computerised order entry). In those treatments without specified ending dates, a ‘post-it’ visible to the clinician was created in the electronic prescription with the following message: ‘Is it necessary to continue antibiotic treatment? If it is not necessary, stop. If it is still necessary, indicate ending date.’ Critical care units and immunocompromised patients were excluded. In addition, attractive format posters were distributed around the hospital with this slogan: ‘Is it necessary to continue antibiotic treatment? No less. No more. It is up to you.’ To analyse the results of the PROA campaign, the following variables were collected: clinical service, number of messages (‘post-it’), stopped therapies after ‘post-it’, treatments with specified ending dates after ‘post-it’, treatments without change after ‘post-it’ and days of therapy (DOT).

Results From a cohort of 930 antibiotic prescriptions filtered, 59 (6%) with a specified ending date, 545 (59%) antibiotic therapies were screened and included in the ‘post-it’ part of the campaign. 24 hours after writing the messages the results were analysed: 196 (36%) treatments were stopped, 104 (19%) specified an ending date and 245 (45%) continued treatment without modification. Moreover, the PROA campaign, through its two working lines, resulted in a significant decrease in DOT. DOT (mean per month): 6.1 (April 2015); 6.2 (May 2015); 5.5 (June 2015); 5.6 (July 2015); 5.6 (August 2015); 5.5 (September 2015); 5.6 (October 2015); 5.6 (November 2015); 5.2 (December 2015); 6.0 (January 2016); 5.4 (February 2016); 5.1 (March 2016).

Conclusion The antibiotic use awareness campaign obtained satisfactory results. PROA suggestions were highly accepted, considering that the only criteria for patient filtering was ‘more than 6 days of antibiotic therapy’. The success of the campaign resulted in a decrease in DOT.

No conflict of interest