Guidelines for the hospital role of the clinical nurse in antimicrobial stewardship: A scoping review

Abstract

Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is a proactive measure to slow the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) [1] through coordinated interventions to improve and measure appropriate use of antimicrobial agents, promote the selection of optimal antimicrobial regimens, and incorporate appropriate dosing, duration and route of administration. [2] AMS became familiar in healthcare following the formulation of guidelines (SHEA/IDSA) [3] in response to increasing reports on AMR. [4] Recommendations by expert policy groups were for a multidisciplinary commitment to the goals of AMS, [5] based on rational use of antimicrobial medicines and prevention of the spread of resistance by effective infection prevention and control. [1,6] Recent literature questions exclusion of nurses in formulating AMS strategies, recommends their inclusion in the AMS team, [7][8][9][10] and raises concern that the nurse's role in AMS has not been adequately leveraged. [11][12][13] AMS forms an important component of patient safety, [6,7] which is unequivocally in the domain of nursing care. [14,15] Advocacy and collaborative roles of nurses in AMS are well understood, [9,16] as is infection prevention and control (IPC); [9,11,17] however, other clinical roles of the nurse, of possible importance for preventing and containing AMR, should also be considered. [8,9,18,19] Nursing organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing [20] and the American Nurses Association [21] have released position papers on the role of nurses. A scoping review was therefore conducted to search for other key recommendations (i.e., guidelines, policy statements, position statements, white papers, standards, strategies, protocols, action plans, or briefs) on the role of the bedside nurse in AMS within the hospital setting. Preliminary search of PROSPERO, MEDLINE, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and the Joanna Briggs Institute Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports identified no current nor proposed scoping reviews or systematic reviews on the topic. This review title is registered with JBI Systematic Review and Open Science Framework (OSF).

Nurses’ knowledge, motivation, behaviors, and information sources on antibiotic use and resistance in Jordan

“…The fight against antibiotic resistance can be accomplished and assisted by nurses who helped in guidance and administration of antibiotics [18]. Antibiotic usage is common among medical professionals, including nurses [2].…”