Antibiotics are the most common medicines prescribed to children in and outside of hospitals, with a high proportion potentially being used inappropriately. This unnecessary exposure to antibiotics, increases the risk of serious side effects, raises healthcare costs, and contributes significantly to the growing global issue of antimicrobial resistance.
The World Health Organization and the United Nations identified the development of country-level and institutional antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) as key instruments to tackle this issue. ASPs are a set of coordinated interventions designed to improve antimicrobial use in terms of selecting the appropriate agent, dose, route of administration, and therapy duration without compromising patient outcomes
A new review authored by Penta collaborators and researchers at the University of Padua is the first systematic review presenting Paediatric ASPs implemented globally, in both inpatient and outpatients settings. This review summarizes the current state of evidence of the implementation and outcomes of Paediatric ASPs globally, and has the potential to help healthcare researchers in evaluating the most suitable ASP to be adopted in their setting and the relative outcomes of interest.
You can read the full article here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13756-019-0659-3