1129. Assessment of Nurses’ Views on Antimicrobial Stewardship at a Pediatric Hospital

BACKGROUND: Regulatory agencies strongly encourage the development of hospital-based antimicrobial stewardship (AS) programs (ASP) to support appropriate antimicrobial prescribing. One component of an ASP is a multidisciplinary team. While the initial conception centered on a physician and a pharmacist, including nurses in AS has been highlighted due to the nurse’s vital role in patient care. There are little data on nurses’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices in AS. The aim of this project was to determine ideas, concerns, and gaps in knowledge of bedside nurses at a local hospital level. METHODS: This project was conducted at an academic pediatric hospital in an urban setting. A survey was designed to obtain nurses’ attitudes and views of AS and to address their frequency and confidence of various AS activities, including triage/isolation, allergy history, obtainment of appropriate diagnostic studies, interpretation of microbiology results, antibiotic de-/escalation, intravenous-to-oral switches of antibiotics, patient/family education, and identification of antimicrobial-associated adverse events. Respondents were asked to identify barriers to AS participation and to propose educational topics of interest. The survey was sent out to nurses, with 3 weekly reminders. RESULTS: 155 of 513 respondents initiated the survey (response rate 30.2%); however, 112 participants completed the entire survey (completion rate 72.3%). Of the respondents, 67% believed that nurses should provide AS but only 32% themselves provided AS; furthermore, 26% of the respondents felt that nurses were equipped to provide AS. The most frequent AS activity reported was patient/family education while the least reported activity was the interpretation of microbiology reports. A correlation was identified between frequency and confidence of performing various AS-related tasks (R(2) = 0.95). Barriers identified by respondents included antimicrobial knowledge, other timely priorities, and inclusion of nurses on bedside rounds. CONCLUSION: Although few respondents felt prepared to provide antimicrobial stewardship, the majority (74%) were interested in learning more about how nurses could be involved. We are currently developing a nurse-centric educational curriculum based on the feedback from the survey. DISCLOSURES: All authors: No reported disclosures.