Effect of Monthly Evaluations on Irrational Rates of Antimicrobial Drug Prescription in Outpatient and Emergency Departments

Reduction of the excessive rate of antibiotic prescription is needed to curb antibiotic resistance. This retrospective study was conducted to verify whether monthly evaluations of antibiotic prescriptions could improve clinical antibiotic use in outpatient and emergency departments. Every month, from July 2016 to June 2019, 25% of the antibacterial prescriptions from the outpatient and emergency departments in our hospital were randomly selected. The hospital formed an evaluation team that conducted preliminary evaluations of these prescriptions and an expert team that re-evaluated any problematic prescriptions. We analysed the irrational prescription rate, proportion of antibiotic use, and consistency between the evaluation and expert teams. At the end of the evaluation period, the utilisation rate of single antibiotics in the outpatient and emergency departments increased, the irrational prescription rate decreased, and the proportion of sold antibiotics gradually decreased. In addition, the consistency of prescription evaluation results between the evaluation and expert groups increased over time. In conclusion, monthly evaluation of antibiotic prescriptions is an effective management tool for the rational use of antibiotics in clinical practice and plays an important role in safe clinical drug use.