Evaluation of a stewardship program of antifungal use at a Brazilian tertiary care hospital

ABSTRACT

Abstract Introduction Stewardship programs have been developed to optimize the use of antibiotics, but programs focusing on antifungal agents are less frequent. Objective To evaluate the quality of antifungal prescriptions in a tertiary care hospital, and to test if a simple educational activity could improve the quality of prescriptions. Methods The study comprised three phases 1) Retrospective audit of all antifungal prescriptions in a 6-month period, applying a score based on six parameters indication, drug, dosage, route of administration, microbiologic adequacy after results of cultures, switching to an oral agent, and duration of treatment; 2) Creation of text boxes in the electronic medical records with information about antifungal agents, shown during prescription; 3) Retrospective audit of all antifungal prescriptions in a 6-month period, applying the same 6-parameters score, and comparison between the two periods. Results Among 333 prescriptions, fluconazole was the most frequently (80.5%) prescribed agent. Hematology (26.7%), Infectious Diseases Department (22.8%), Internal Medicine (15.9%) and Intensive Care Unit (14.4%) were the units with most antifungal prescriptions. The median score for the 333 prescriptions was 8.0 (range 0 - 10), and 72.7% of prescriptions were considered inappropriate. The median and mean scores in the first and second audit were 8.0 and 6.9, and 8.0 and 7.9, respectively (p<0.001). All items that comprised the score improved from the first to the second audit. Likewise, there was a reduction of inappropriate prescriptions (80.2% in the first audit vs. 64.6% in the second audit, p=0.001). Conclusions A large proportion of inappropriate prescriptions was observed, which improved with the implementation of simple educational activities.