Point prevalence survey of antimicrobial consumption and resistance: 2015-2018 longitudinal survey results from Nigeria

Background: Nigeria joined the global community in monitoring antimicrobial prescribing practices since 2015. Results of individual hospital Global Point Prevalence Survey (Global-PPS) have stimulated efforts at instituting hospital-based antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programmes. We report the trends of antimicrobial prescribing rates and quality indicators for 3 surveillance periods; 2015, 2017 and 2018.Methodology: The web-based Global-PPS for surveillance of antimicrobial use in hospitals (www.globalpps.com) was completed by each participating hospital site for all inpatients receiving antimicrobials on a selected day in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Data included details on antimicrobial agents, reasons and indications for treatment and a set of quality prescribing indicators. Data were validated by the web-based data management system of University of Antwerp, exported into Microsoft Excel and analyzed with EPI INFO version 7.2.Results: Thirteen hospitals participated in the survey involving a total of 5,174 inpatients. Mean weighted overall antimicrobial prescribing prevalence was 70.7% which declined over the years from 71.7% in 2015 to 59.1% in 2018 (p<0.001). The rate of documentation of date for post prescription review improved from 27.9% in 2015 to 48.5% in 2018 (p<0.001) while the rates of targeted treatment declined from 12.0% in 2015 to 5.2% in 2018 (p<0.001). There was no significant change in the choice of parenteral drug administration (64.5% in 2015, 65.1% in 2017 and 62.6% in 2018; p=0.6803), and but there was significant increase in documentation of reasons for prescription in case notes (62.2% in 2015, 74.5% in 2017, and 70.9% in 2018; p=0.008). Overall, the main indications for therapeutic prescribing were skin and soft tissue infections (20.8%), sepsis (15.9%) and pneumonia (11.6%). The top three antibiotics for therapeutic use were ceftriaxone (18.2%), metronidazole (15.3%) and ciprofloxacin (10.4%).Conclusions: The survey showed reduction in the overall antimicrobial prescribing rate especially in hospitals that had introduced AMS programmes. Among the quality prescribing indicators, documentation of post prescription review date showed improvement. The Global-PPS serves as a cost effective, flexible and userfriendly tool in instituting AMS programmes in hospitals. Keywords: antimicrobial prescribing, hospital, global-point prevalence survey, quality indicators

Updating and validating quality prescribing indicators for use in Australian general practice

This study aims to update and validate quality prescribing indicators (QPIs) for Australian general practice. The study comprised two phases: (1) developing preliminary potential QPIs based on the 2006 National Prescribing Service (NPS) MedicineWise indicators, published literature, international indicators and guidelines, and through qualitative focus group discussions; and (2) validating the proposed QPIs through a two-round online survey using the Delphi technique. The Delphi panel included four GPs, four pharmacists and two clinical pharmacologists. The Delphi panel rated the potential QPIs for their validity, importance and feasibility using a 1–10 Likert scale. In round one, all proposed QPIs presented as ‘prescribing rules’ achieved high scores regarding validity, importance and feasibility No rule was eliminated and three new rules were introduced. Rules were reworded into ‘prescribing indicators’ for round two, which resulted in 35 indicators being accepted and two indicators being eliminated. The final QPIs also include seven drug–drug interactions, which received high scores in round one. In conclusion, 42 QPIs were nominated for use in Australian general practice, based on their validity, importance and feasibility. If implemented, these QPIs have the potential to assist in efforts to improve the quality and safety of medicines management.