Article Text
Abstract
Background and Importance Programmes to optimise antibiotics use (PROA) are constituted by multidisciplinary teams involving at least one physician, one pharmacist and one microbiologist. Their purpose is to improve clinical outcomes related to antibiotic use, reduce adverse effects and ensure cost-effectiveness treatment through educational clinical interventions.
Aim and Objectives The aim of this study is to evaluate the acceptance of these interventions through an automated system and compare the results with those obtained manually in the previous year.
Material and Methods Descriptive, retrospective and cross-sectional study, conducted between January-September 2023. A software tool was developed to analyse whether PROA interventions were accepted within the following 48 hours.
The system, by means of computer programming, analyses the recorded interventions and assesses whether the prescriptions have been modified. It only focuses on recommendations related to treatment suspension, sequential therapy or antibiotic de-escalation and classifies them as rejected, if prescription continued unaltered, or accepted if changes occurred according with the recommendation. Subsequently, a comparative analysis was conducted between data obtained using this tool and data manually obtained previously from a cross-section study carried out in February 2022. All information was collected from electronic medical records and analysed using the R statistical programme (v.4.2.2). Categorical variables are expressed as frequency and percentage.
Results A total of 859 interventions were analysed with an acceptance rate of 83.5%; 556 involved treatment suspension, 245 antibiotic de-escalation and 58 sequential therapy. Acceptance rates for each were 86%, 80% and 74%, respectively.
Conclusion and Relevance The automated system offers a comprehensive view of the acceptance rates of PROA interventions over time, contrasting with the manual approach that only can be afforded for a short period of time. Although it has some limitations because it does not include all intervention types, it allows a quick analysis of the impact of these interventions in clinical practice.
Conflict of Interest No conflict of interest.