Evaluation of a stewardship program of antifungal use at a Brazilian tertiary care hospital

INTRODUCTION: Stewardship programs have been developed to optimize the use of antibiotics, but programs focusing on antifungal agents are less frequent. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the quality of antifungal prescriptions in a tertiary care hospital, and to test if a simple educational activity could improve the quality of prescriptions. METHODS: The study comprised three phases: 1) Retrospective audit of all antifungal prescriptions in a 6-month period, applying a score based on six parameters: indication, drug, dosage, route of administration, microbiologic adequacy after results of cultures, switching to an oral agent, and duration of treatment; 2) Creation of text boxes in the electronic medical records with information about antifungal agents, shown during prescription; 3) Retrospective audit of all antifungal prescriptions in a 6-month period, applying the same 6-parameters score, and comparison between the two periods. RESULTS: Among 333 prescriptions, fluconazole was the most frequently (80.5%) prescribed agent. Hematology (26.7%), Infectious Diseases Department (22.8%), Internal Medicine (15.9%) and Intensive Care Unit (14.4%) were the units with most antifungal prescriptions. The median score for the 333 prescriptions was 8.0 (range 0 – 10), and 72.7% of prescriptions were considered inappropriate. The median and mean scores in the first and second audit were 8.0 and 6.9, and 8.0 and 7.9, respectively (p<0.001). All items that comprised the score improved from the first to the second audit. Likewise, there was a reduction of inappropriate prescriptions (80.2% in the first audit vs. 64.6% in the second audit, p=0.001). CONCLUSIONS: A large proportion of inappropriate prescriptions was observed, which improved with the implementation of simple educational activities.