Attitudes and Perceptions amongst Critical Care Physicians towards Handshake Antimicrobial Stewardship Rounds

Rationale In an era of antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial stewardship programs are tasked with reducing inappropriate use of antimicrobials in community and hospital settings. Intensive care units are unique, high-stakes environments where high usage of broad-spectrum antimicrobials is often seen. Handshake stewardship has emerged as an effective mode of prospective audit and feedback to help optimize antimicrobial usage, emphasizing an in-person approach to providing feedback. Objectives Six months following the implementation of handshake stewardship rounds in our intensive care unit, we performed a cross-sectional survey of critical care physicians to assess their attitudes and perceptions towards handshake stewardship rounds and preferred mode of delivery of antimicrobial stewardship prospective audit and feedback strategies. Methods A web-based survey was distributed to 22 critical care physicians working in our hospital and responses were collected over a two-week period. Measurements and Main Results Most critical care physicians believe that handshake stewardship rounds improve the quality of patient care (85.7%) and few believe that handshake stewardship rounds are an ineffective use of their time (14.3%). The majority of critical care physicians believe formal, scheduled rounds with face-to-face verbal interaction are very useful compared to providing written suggestions in the absence of face-to-face interaction (71.4% vs 0%). Conclusions Based upon our survey results, handshake stewardship is valued amongst the majority of critical care physicians. Antimicrobial stewardship prospective audit and feedback strategies emphasizing face-to-face interaction are favored amongst critical care physicians.