Systematic review of factors promoting behaviour change toward antibiotic use in hospitals.

Background: Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programmes include actions to improve antibiotic use.

Objectives: This study aimed to identify factors of AMS interventions associated with behaviour change toward antibiotic use in hospitals, applying behavioural sciences.

Data Sources: PubMed and Scopus online databases were searched.

Study Eligibility Criteria: Studies published between January 2015 and December 2020 were included. The required study outcomes were as follows: effect of the intervention reported in terms of antibiotic consumption, antibiotic costs, appropriateness of prescription, duration of therapy, proportion of patients treated with antibiotics, or time to appropriate antibiotic therapy.

Participants: Participants included health care professionals involved in antibiotic prescription and use in hospitals and patients receiving or susceptible to receiving antibiotics.

Interventions: Studies investigating AMS interventions in hospitals were included.

Methods: Risk of bias was determined using the integrated quality criteria for review of multiple study designs tool. A systematic review of AMS interventions was conducted using the behaviour change wheel to identify behaviour changes functions of interventions; and the action, actor, context, target, and time framework to describe how they are implemented. Relationships between intervention functions and the action, actor, context, target, and time domains were explored to deduce factors for optimal implementation.

Results: Among 124 studies reporting 123 interventions, 64% were effective in reducing antibiotic use or improving the quality of antibiotic prescription. In addition, 91% of the studies had a high risk of bias. The main functions retrieved in the effective interventions were enablement, environmental restructuring, and education. The most common subcategories were audit and feedback and real-time recommendation for enablement function, as well as material resources, human resources, and new tasks for environmental restructuring function. Most AMS interventions focused on prescriptions, targeted prescribers, and were implemented by pharmacists, infectious diseases specialists, and microbiologists. Interventions focusing on specific clinical situation were effective in 70% of cases.

Conclusions: Knowledge of factors associated with behaviour changes will help address local barriers and enablers before implementing interventions.