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Promoting ASPs through social media reinforces stewardship practices
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Facebook posts and tweets promoting resources for an antibiotic stewardship program, or ASP, at an academic tertiary care center increased internal medical residents’ knowledge of antibiotics and strengthened ASP practices, according to a recent study.
Jennifer Pisano, MD, of the department of medicine, section of infectious diseases and global health at the University of Chicago Medicine, and colleagues reported in the American Journal of Infection Control that half of all antibiotic use is inappropriate. Although there are guidelines on how to properly treat common infections, the researchers wrote that these guidelines are not consistently used by health care professionals.
“Guidelines, research, epidemiologic data and available antibiotics change often, far too quickly for a provider to keep up when they are busy seeing patients,” Pisano told Infectious Disease News. “ASPs are responsible for taking all of this quickly changing information and ensuring providers have the appropriate tools to make informed decisions about the antibiotics they use to treat patients. Many times, educational conferences and trainings are held during traditional working hours, when more and more providers and trainees work during non-traditional hours (nights and weekends). Providing pointed updates in tools available, recent developments in the literature, and reinforcing antibiotic/stewardship knowledge through social media has the potential to bridge this gap.”
For the study, Pisano and colleagues utilized Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness of ASP tools located on their facility’s website, including infection-related clinical pathways and order sets. In addition to basic information, they posted trivia questions and offered a $5 coffee card each day to a random respondent to increase participant engagement. Respondents also were entered into a monthly drawing for a $100 Amazon.com gift card.
Fifty-five internal medicine residents (IMRs) agreed to follow the facility’s ASP on Twitter and Facebook for 6 months. The researchers encouraged the IMRs to engage with the program; however, it was not mandatory. Among the IMRs, 41% participated in one or more interactions, and 18% participated in more than 5 interactions.
Thirty-nine percent of the participants completed surveys administered before and after the intervention. In the post-intervention survey, antibiotic knowledge test scores increased from 12 (interquartile range, 8-13) to 13 (IQR, 11-15; P = .05). The participants were more confident about antibiotic duration in inpatient and outpatient settings, and were more aware of pathways and drug dosage recommendations (P < .01 for all). Their knowledge on the ASP and how to access it on the internal website increased from 70% to 94%, and the proportion of IMRs who reported using clinical pathways “sometimes, frequently or always” significantly increased from 33% to 61% (P = .04).
“As technology becomes more widely used in medical care, social media-based education could be even more successful than in our cohort,” Pisano and colleagues wrote. “We believe social media has the capacity to reach medical trainees to disseminate and reinforce important information regarding antibiotic use criteria and other educational and patient safety tools, including the use of order sets and pathways in a uniquely, timely, far-reaching fashion and at the point of care.”
In other survey results, most participants said that antibiotics are overused (89%); however, only 52% said antibiotics are overused at their institution, and 38% said they overuse antibiotics themselves. The IMRs reported that most of their knowledge regarding antibiotic use comes from ID fellows, co-residents and attending physicians.
“This was important to learn because it underscores the need to educate about stewardship principles at all levels of training, with continuous reinforcement to ensure that the information being taught is correct and timely, considering guidelines and epidemiologic data are updated frequently,” the researchers concluded. – by Stephanie Viguers
Disclosure: Pisano reports receiving funds from Pfizer.
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