Optimising the responsible use of antibiotics

Optimising the responsible use of antibiotics

PhD Project - Shazia Yousuf

Antibiotic stewardship has been defined in a consensus statement as “coordinated interventions designed to improve and measure the appropriate use of [antibiotic] agents by promoting the selection of the optimal [antibiotic] drug regimen including dosing, duration of therapy, and route of administration”

The potential benefits of antibiotic stewardship programme (ASP) include improved patient outcomes, reduced adverse events including Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), optimization of resource utilization across the continuum of care.

This research aims to accelerate the improvement of evaluation of Stewardship interventions by tracking core outcomes that closely measure the impact of interventions.

Multiple factors drive the selection of these program interventions and associated target outcomes. Before designing the approach to evaluate an intervention, it is critical to identify the outcomes of interest.

The overarching Ph.D. objectives are 1. To identify all outcomes reported for hospital AMS interventions to understand the breadth of the problem i.e., variations in outcome reporting (completed), 2. To identify outcomes that matters to the members of the public relevant to antibiotic use in hospitals to fill the gaps in the literature(completed), 3. To refine outcome list for inclusion into the Delphi survey (completed) and 4. To identify the outcomes most important to relevant stakeholders including clinicians, the public, policymakers, and researchers that should be measured in future trials of hospital AMS interventions (in development).

Supervision: Prof C Ramsay, Dr E Duncan, Dr Magdalena Rzewuska

Contacts

Status

Ongoing