Clinical Impact of an Antibiotic Stewardship Program in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Background: Implementing an antimicrobial stewardship program is one of the main efforts to control antimicrobial resistance. The present study aimed to assess the clinical impact of the antibiotics stewardship program (ASP) in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of Assiut University Children's Hospital. Methods: The study was conducted in two phases from January 2019 to June 2020. The pre-ASP phase (603 patients) included making NICU-specific antibiograms, choosing the antibiotic use evaluation measures, conducting antibiotic use evaluations, and designing the ASP. The ASP intervention phase (597 patients) included implementation of the ASP, which involved modifying the neonatal sepsis treatment protocol according to the local antibiotic susceptibility patterns and measuring its clinical outcomes. Results: The ASP intervention phase showed a significant increase in the number of C-reactive protein tests, microbiological cultures/patient, the number of patients taking definitive therapy, and the number of pharmacist interventions/patient. The prescribing rates of antibiotics and their consumption levels were changed according to the NICU-specific antibiogram. There was a significant reduction in the 14-day and 28-day mortality of patients with late-onset sepsis after modifying the neonatal sepsis treatment protocol in the ASP intervention phase. Conclusion: ASP implementation was successful in improving antibiotic prescribing and patients outcomes.