Strategies to improve antimicrobial stewardship in surgery: insights from an ethnographic study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is an urgent need to improve surgical antimicrobial stewardship (AMS), to enhance individual care and reduce population-level antimicrobial resistance, but it is a complex issue.

Objectives

We aimed to conduct an ethnographic study asking what would work in practice to improve surgical antibiotic prescribing behaviour?

Methods

Adopting a socio-cultural-historical perspective, we undertook ethnographic observations of clinical practice (43.5 hours) and semistructured interviews (n=31) with surgical staff, AMS staff and patients at two English National Health Service hospitals. Interview transcripts and observational fieldnotes were analysed using the Framework Approach. Additionally, we integrated stakeholder engagement throughout to ensure the finding

SUBMITTER: Parker H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12853513 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature