Implementation status of antimicrobial stewardship programs in hospitals: A quantitative analysis study in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam has one of the highest multi drug resistance in Asia. Although, despite many efforts to implement the Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs (the ASP) since 2016, studies that on the implementation policy are very lacking of this program are limited. For that reason, we conducted this cross-sectional study to analyze the viewpoint of health workers (HWs) on the implementation of the ASP at some hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). An assessment of 234 HWs showed that the implementation of the ASP in HCMC hospitals was above average (62.7/100.0). A barrier to the implementation consisted of the deficiency in finances, guidelines for diagnosis, and specific interventions for some common infections, such as distributing current antibiogram and monitoring rate of Clostridioides difficile infections. These were the widely recognized problems in initially implementing the ASP. Although most HWs are aware of the importance of implementing the ASP (79.1%), the specific assessment has not been recorded clearly due to the numerous neutral responses. Despite the support of the leadership, the implementation still faces many difficulties and limitations, especially in 3rd and 4th class hospitals. Besides, there was a lack of wide dissemination of information on the ASP at each unit. To generalize the status of the ASP implementation, researchers should conduct qualitative and quantitative studies with a larger scale.