A point prevalence survey of antimicrobial utilisation patterns and quality indices amongst hospitals in South Africa; findings and implications.
Objectives: Antimicrobial use is growing, driven mainly by rising demands in developing countries. Knowing how antimicrobials are prescribed is important. Consequently, we undertook a point prevalence survey (PPS) quantifying antimicrobial consumption among 18 public sector hospitals across South Africa.Method: A purpose-built web-based application was used to collect PPS data.Results: Out of 4407 adult patients surveyed, 33.6% were treated with an antimicrobial. The most frequently prescribed groups were a combination of penicillins including β-lactamase inhibitors. Amoxicillin combined with an enzyme inhibitor accounted for 21.4% total DDDs. In the medical and surgical wards, Access antimicrobials (54.1%) were mostly used, while in the ICU, Watch antimicrobials (51.5%) were mostly used. Compliance with the South African Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines List was 90.2%; however, concerns with extended use of antimicrobials for surgical prophylaxis (73.2% of patients).Conclusion: The web-based PPS tool was easy to use and successful in capturing PPS data since the results were comparable to other PPS studies across Africa. High use of amoxicillin combined with an enzyme inhibitor, possibly because it was among the broad-spectrum antimicrobials in the Access group. The findings will assist with future targets to improve antimicrobial prescribing among public sector hospitals in South Africa.
['Skosana|P P|PP|', 'Schellack|N|N|0000-0001-9690-6285', 'Godman|B|B|0000-0001-6539-6972', 'Kurdi|A|A|0000-0001-5036-1988', 'Bennie|M|M|0000-0002-4046-629X', 'Kruger|D|D|', 'Meyer|J C|JC|0000-0003-0462-5713']
D000328:Adult D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents D000890:Anti-Infective Agents D019983:Guideline Adherence D006779:Hospitals, Public D006801:Humans D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' D015995:Prevalence D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care D013019:South Africa D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
point prevalent surveys quality indicators South Africa Antimicrobial consumption standard Treatment Guidelines surgical prophylaxis aware list of antimicrobials public hospitals rational medicine use