A survey on antimicrobial stewardship in 116 tertiary hospitals in China

We aimed to assess the status and possible problems of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in Grade-A tertiary hospitals in China.

A questionnaire was designed according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 'Core Elements of Hospital Antibiotic Stewardship Programs'. We extracted 10-15% from Grade A tertiary hospitals in every province of mainland China; 165 hospitals in total were selected. Electronic questionnaires were forwarded to these hospitals.

Of the hospitals surveyed, 116 (70.3%) responded. Participating hospitals accounted for 8.9% (116/1308) of all the Grade A tertiary hospitals in mainland China, covering all provinces and municipalities. Our study revealed that an AMS team was set up for an antimicrobial stewardship programme (ASP) in 110 hospitals (94.8%). Thirty hospitals lacked a formal department of infectious diseases (DID). A formal DID can positively promote an ASP. More hospitals with a formal DID developed their internal guidelines (54.7% versus 33.3%, p 0.044) and technical documents (83.7% versus 63.3%, p 0.019) on antimicrobial use than hospitals without a formal DID. All the 116 hospitals strengthened appropriate use of antimicrobials by some administration-dominated measures, among which the most frequent measures were classification management of antimicrobial agents (114 hospitals, 98.3%) and post-prescription review with feedback (106 hospitals, 91.4%). Prescription preauthorization and pre-prescription review with feedback were implemented in nearly 50% of the hospitals. More hospitals with a DID conducted pre-prescription review with feedback (53.5% versus 26.7%, p 0.027). The most frequent indicator to assess the impact of AMS was the defined daily dose (DDD) (103 hospitals, 96.3%).

The survey showed significant achievements in China in AMS, mainly including the antibiotic consumption index; there is still a lot of work to be done, such as how to evaluate patient safety and infection outcome after strict restriction of antibiotic use.