Can Antibiotic Stewardship Be Achieved by Utilizing the Stewardship Through Educating Patients (S.T.E.P.) Process?

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Antimicrobial Stewardship
• Public Health

Background:

• Antibiotic overprescribing persists despite efforts to combat bacterial resistance, often driven by patient expectations.
• The Stewardship Through Educating Patients (S.T.E.P.) program aims to address this through patient education.
• Common illnesses like colds, sinusitis, and bronchitis are frequently viral, yet often treated with antibiotics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the association between provider patient education and patient satisfaction.
• To evaluate the impact of the S.T.E.P. process on subsequent patient behavior regarding antibiotic prescriptions.
• To promote positive prescriptive change in antibiotic use.

Main Methods:

• A Quality Improvement (QI) interventional study was conducted.
• Interventions included face-to-face patient education and printed materials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
• The study sampled 40 hospital employees at a healthcare clinic, measuring antibiotic prescribing as the primary outcome and patient satisfaction as the secondary outcome.

Main Results:

• Patient education, including CDC materials, effectively reduced antibiotic prescribing.
• The interventions resulted in positive patient satisfaction in 95% of participants.
• This highlights the efficacy of combined patient education and clinician intervention.

Conclusions:

• Antibiotic use for common adult illnesses (colds, sinusitis, bronchitis) can be safely reduced.
• A combination of patient education and clinician intervention is a viable strategy for reducing unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions.
• This approach supports antimicrobial stewardship and combats antibiotic resistance.