the effect of a pharmacist-led educational intervention on rational antibiotic prescribing in an outpatient emergency department

Background: educational interventions are effective methods for promoting knowledge and awareness among physicians to reduce irrational antibiotic prescriptions. objectives: this study was designed to evaluate the effect of an educational intervention conducted by pharmacists on rational antibiotic prescribing in an outpatient emergency department (ed). methods: this pre-post pilot intervention study was conducted in the outpatient ed of shahid bahonar hospital, affiliated with kerman university of medical sciences, kerman, iran, from february to june 2020. non-random (convenience) sampling was used. all patients sent to the outpatient ed at triage who were prescribed antibiotics were included in this study. the pre-intervention phase was observational, during which a pharmacist assessed irrational antibiotic prescriptions over one month. educational topics were determined based on the most common diagnoses related to irrational antibiotic prescriptions, in consultation with a clinical pharmacist and an infectious disease specialist. an educational video was then prepared and provided to the doctors prescribing antibiotics. subsequently, the post-intervention phase was conducted in the same manner as the pre-intervention phase for one month. results: during the pre-intervention phase, out of 314 prescriptions, 100 (31.85%) contained antibiotics. in the post-intervention phase, among a total of 235 prescriptions, 100 (42.55%) contained antibiotics. the mean age of the patients was 36.65 ± 15.73 years in the first phase and 37.30 ± 15.71 years in the second phase. analyses revealed that the educational intervention had a statistically significant effect on reducing irrational antibiotic prescribing with respect to indication (p = 0.0001), dose (p = 0.005), and duration (p = 0.0001). conclusions: the pharmacists’ educational intervention effectively reduced irrational antibiotic prescribing in the outpatient ed.