Effect of Pharmacist-Initiated Interventions on Duration of Antibiotic Therapy for Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Community-Acquired Pneumonia.

Background: Current guidelines for the treatment of acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) recommend 5 days of antimicrobial therapy. Despite these recommendations, the duration of therapy exceeds 5 days for up to 70% of patients, with most superfluous prescribing occurring upon discharge from hospital. Shortening the duration of antibiotic therapy could decrease adverse events, resistance, and costs.

Objective: To determine whether a pharmacist-initiated modification to the duration of antibiotic therapy prescribed for the treatment of AECOPD or CAP reduced the duration of antibiotic prescriptions.

Methods: In this prospective, single-centre study of adult inpatients receiving antibiotics for the treatment of AECOPD or CAP between October 2020 and March 2021, pharmacists assigned a 5-day duration to antimicrobials prescribed for these indications. For patients discharged before completion of therapy, the antibiotic start date and intended duration were included on the discharge prescription. Study patients were matched 1:1 with historical controls to compare the total duration of antibiotic therapy with and without the intervention.

Results: A total of 100 patients (66 with CAP and 34 with AECOPD) met the inclusion criteria and had their antibiotic treatment duration modified to 5 days. Mean total duration of antibiotic therapy was 5.31 days in the intervention group and 7.11 days in the control group (p < 0.001). Outpatient antibiotic prescribing was 0.86 days in the intervention group and 3.2 days in the control group (p < 0.001). In both groups, the rates of readmission at 30 and 90 days were 19% and 31%, respectively.

Conclusions: Pharmacist-initiated modification of antimicrobial therapy resulted in shortening of the duration of therapy by almost 2 days. Including information about treatment duration on the discharge prescription reduced outpatient prescribing without affecting readmission rates.