Second-year outcomes of Antimicrobial Stewardship Program implementation in a tertiary pediatric hospital

: Background: Increasing use of antimicrobial agents and resistance is becoming a serious problem in pediatric patients. Antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) is implemented to lessen the consequences. Objectives: This report aimed to demonstrate the impact of ASP on antimicrobials utilization in a referral and tertiary pediatric hospital, Isfahan, Iran. Methods: The Imam Hussain Hospital Infection Control Committee, a 186-bed pediatrics hospital, launched an ASP for inpatients in March 2018. During February 2017-January 2018 (pre-intervention) and February 2019-January 2020 (post-intervention), we gathered the information data gathered by ASP multidisciplinary team and hospital records. Consumption data were expressed as defined daily doses (DDDs) per 100 patient-days (PD). Independent sample t-tests and paired t-tests were used to assess the importance of the differences. The rates of antimicrobials resistance for the most common hospital pathogens were also tracked. Results: Total antimicrobials utilization decreased meaningfully by 12.41 percent (from 62.11 DDDs/100 PD in February2017-January2018 to 54.40 DDDs/100 PD in February 2019-January 2020, p =0.024). The results showed that non-restricted antimicrobials were experiencing a smaller reduction (5.43 percent) than restricted antimicrobials (27.6 percent). Conclusions: According to our results, after ASP implementation in pediatric center, the use of antimicrobials specially the broad-spectrum ones and also the health burden cost was decreased significantly. The continues monitoring and education for maintaining the positive effects are recommended.