Prospective Audit of Empirical Antibiotic Therapy for Septic Patients

Antibiotic stewardship programs are necessary to test the appropriateness of local guidelines for empirical antibiotic treatment by audits.

To assess whether compliance to local guidelines achieved a higher rate of appropriate antibiotic treatment and reduced morbidity and mortality, and whether infectious disease counseling improved the rate of appropriate treatment.

Our cohort comprised 294 patients with proven bacteremia. Data were retrieved from medical records including diagnosis, empiric antibiotic treatment, and outcomes.

The empirical treatment was consistent with bacterial susceptibility in 227 patients (77%), and matched in 64% of the time to the first line, and another 24% to the second line of institutional guidelines. A strong correlation was found between appropriate empiric treatment according to bacterial susceptibility and reduced mortality (odds ratio [OR] 0.403, P = 0.007). A similar correlation was found with the choice of appropriate antibiotics according to local guidelines (OR 0.392, P = 0.005). Infectious disease consultation was related to an increase in the rate of appropriateness of treatment according to guidelines (85% vs.76%, P = 0.005). A tendency to increased appropriateness was related to microbial susceptibility (87% vs. 74%, P = 0.07).

In this study, initiation of appropriate empiric antibiotic therapy, according to the hospital's guidelines, was found associated with reduced mortality in patients with bacteremia.