Behaviour Change Techniques in improving Antimicrobial Prescribing.

A new publication from CIPM looks at the impact of behaviour change techniques (BCTs) on improving antibiotic prescribing.

The article authored by collaborators from the Centre for Infection Prevention and Management (CIPM) at Imperial College London, the University of Dundee and University College London states that evidence strongly suggests that self-monitoring and feedback are important BCTs across many healthcare interventions and effectiveness of such techniques is increased by effective planning and goal setting.

They identified 116 studies that reported a total of 123 behaviour change interventions. From these interventions, it was found that reporting on BCTs was low with feedback only reported for 13.8% of interventions. Self-monitoring was only used in one of the interventions. Although goals were reported for all interventions, these were inadequately specified and a threshold and timescale for goals was only reported in one of the interventions.

The publication also reports that only a quarter of authors of the 116 studies responded to requests for further information.

As such, the publication concluded that both the content and reporting of interventions for antimicrobial stewardship did not stand up to scientific principles and practices.

It highlights that in order to understand what BCTs work best, why this is and in what circumstances, the strong evidence base existing for BCTs in other contexts should be applied to antimicrobial stewardship.

Read the article published online in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents here.