Background: There is little evidence of the impact of antimicrobial stewardship programmes on antimicrobial resistance.
Objectives: To study the efficacy and safety of a package of educational and interventional measures to optimize linezolid use and its impact on bacterial resistance.
Methods: A quasi-experimental study was designed and carried out before and after implementation of a stewardship programme in hospitalized patients with Gram-positive infections treated with linezolid.
Results: The intervention reduced linezolid consumption by 76%. The risk of linezolid-resistant CoNS isolates (OR = 0.37; 95% CI = 0.27-0.49; P < 0.001) and Enterococcus faecalis (OR = 0.44; 95% CI = 0.21-0.90; P = 0.03) during the intervention period was lower than in the pre-intervention period.
Conclusions: A programme to optimize linezolid use can contribute to reducing the resistance rate of CoNS and E. faecalis to this antibiotic.
© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.