A mixed-methods needs assessment for an antimicrobial stewardship curriculum in pediatrics

Antimicrobial stewardship (AS) education initiatives for multidisciplinary teams are most successful when addressing psychosocial factors driving antimicrobial prescribing (AP) and when they address the needs of the team to allow for a tailored approach to their education.

We conducted a mixed-methods embedded study as a needs assessment, involving quantitative analysis of AS concerns observed by pharmacists through an audit while attending clinical team rounds, as well as qualitative semi-structured interviews based on the Theoretical Domain Framework (TDF) to identify psychosocial barriers and facilitators for antimicrobial prescribing for an inpatient general pediatric service. We analyzed the data using deductive and inductive methods by mapping the TDF to a model for social determinants of antimicrobial prescribing (SDAP) in pediatric inpatient health care teams.

The Clinical Teaching Unit (CTU) and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), at a tertiary care pediatric hospital in Canada.

Interviews (n = 23) with staff and resident physicians, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists.

Psychosocial facilitators and barriers for AS practice in the PICU and CTU which were identified included: collaboration, shared decision-making, locally accessible guidelines, and an overarching goal of doing right by the patient and feeling empowered as a prescriber. Some of the barriers identified included the norm of noninterference, professional comparisons, limited resources, feeling inadequately trained in AS, emotional prescribing, and a pejorative monitoring system.

Our findings identified barriers and facilitators to AS decisions on pediatric inpatient teams as well as actionable needs in psychosocial-based AS education.