Agreement between pharmacists and physicians on the assessment of appropriateness of antimicrobial prescribing

Introduction

Audits for monitoring the quality of antimicrobial prescribing are a main tool in antimicrobial stewardship programs; however, interobserver reliability has not been conclusively assessed. Our objective was to measure the level of agreement between pharmacists and physicians on the appropriateness of antimicrobials prescribing in hospitals.

Methods

A national multicenter, cross-sectional study was conducted of patients who were receiving antimicrobials one day of April 2021. Hospital participation was voluntary, and the study population was randomly selected. Pharmacists and physicians performed a simultaneous, independent assessment of the quality of antimicrobial prescriptions. The observers used an assessment method by which all indicators of the quality of antimicrobial use were considered. Finally, an algorithm was used to rate overall antimicrobial prescribing as appropriate, suboptimal, inappropriate, or not assessable. Gwet's AC1 coefficient was used to assess interobserver agreement.

Results

In total, 101 hospitals participated, and 411 hospital antimicrobial prescriptions were reviewed. The strength of agreement was moderate regarding the overall quality of prescribing (AC1 = 0.51; 95%CI = [0.44–0.58]). A very good level of agreement (AC1 > 0.80) was observed between pharmacists and physicians in all indicators of the quality, except for duration of treatment, rated as good (AC1 = 0.79; 95%CI = [0.75–0.83]), and registration on the medical record, rated as fair (AC1 = 0.34; 95%CI = [0.26–0.43]). The agreement was greater in critical care, onco-hematology, and pediatric units than in medical and surgery units.

Conclusions

In this point prevalence study, a moderate level of agreement was observed between pharmacists and physicians in the evaluation of the appropriateness of antimicrobials prescribing in hospitals.