Antimicrobial prophylaxis for endourological procedures in Jordanian hospitals: a multi-centre qualitative study.

OBJECTIVES

To explore urologists' perceptions of barriers to, and facilitators of, adherence to international antimicrobial prophylaxis (AP) guidelines for endourological procedures in Jordan and to identify strategies to optimise guideline-concordant AP prescribing.

DESIGN

The present study is a qualitative study undertaken through semi-structured interviews and inductive thematic analysis. Study results are reported per Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research.

SETTING

Secondary and tertiary care across multiple public, private and academic hospitals in Jordan.

PARTICIPANTS

Nineteen practising urologists (all male; median age 32 years, IQR 8; nine residents, 10 specialists) who routinely prescribe AP for endourological procedures. Participants were recruited via convenience snowball sampling and interviewed until thematic saturation was reached.

INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The main outcomes were themes describing perceived barriers to guideline adherence and potential facilitators to support appropriate AP use.

RESULTS

Participants identified several barriers: (1) patient level, strong expectations for antibiotics post-procedure and concerns about procedure-site hygiene; (2) clinician level, fear of postoperative infections and litigation, lack of familiarity with updated guidance and doubts about applying international guidelines locally; (3) system level, hierarchical prescribing dynamics, referral communication gaps, high workloads and time pressures, and concerns over sterilisation practices. Facilitators included targeted professional training and regular guideline updates for urologists, development of local AP guidelines informed by local resistance data, enhanced patient education campaigns and active involvement of clinical pharmacists in preoperative antibiotic review and auditing.

CONCLUSIONS

Urologists in Jordan face multifaceted barriers to AP guideline adherence. Future stewardship programmes can use insights from this study to develop locally tailored guidelines, targeted clinician training and pharmacist-led audits. Pilot testing with metrics such as prescribing rates, guideline concordance, antibiotic consumption and postoperative infection incidence will be essential to validate their impact before wider implementation.