Impact of individualized feedback letters on adherence to surgical antibiotic prophylaxis guidelines: an interrupted time series study (FEEDBACK-ASAP)

Abstract

Surgical antibiotic prophylaxis (SAP) has been proved to decrease the rate of surgical site infections (SSI), but compliance to SAP guidelines remains suboptimal. This study evaluated the impact of periodically sending individualized feedback letters to surgeons and anesthesiologists on their compliance rate to SAP guidelines. A total of 1491 surgeries were evaluated by retrospective chart review during the pre-intervention period and 668 surgeries were evaluated by prospective chart review during the per-intervention period. Finally, 295 letters were sent to 64 surgeons and 45 anesthesiologists. Compliance rate was assessed as an outcome composed of: indication for SAP, choice of antibiotic agent, antibiotic dose, postoperative duration, timing of the preoperative dose and intraoperative redosing. An interrupted time series design was used to assess a difference on compliance rates before and during the intervention period. Sending individualized feedback letters to surgeons and anesthesiologists did not significantly improve the overall compliance to local SAP guidelines. Individualized feedback letters could be part of future interventions directed at improving compliance to SAP guidelines, but are likely insufficient by themselves to provide significant results.