Key Points

Question Improving antibiotic stewardship in clinical settings prone to inappropriate antibiotic use has been a persistent and difficult challenge, especially for diarrheal disease management.

Findings This study evaluated a decision support tool that uses an algorithm of patient-specific and location-specific features to estimate the probability a case of diarrhea is caused by a virus; use of the tool did not associate with a change in antibiotic use overall. When accounting for the probability that a case was viral, a reduction in antibiotic use was found.

Meaning Antibiotic stewardship for diarrheal disease can be aided by tools that predict viral causation.

Abstract

Importance Inappropriate use of antibiotics for diarrheal illness can result in adverse effects and increase in antimicrobial resistance.

Objective To determine whether the diarrheal etiology prediction (DEP) algorithm, which uses patient-specific and location-specific features to estimate the probability that diarrhea etiology is exclusively viral, impacts antibiotic prescriptions in patients with acute diarrhea.

Design, Setting, and Participants A randomized crossover study was conducted to evaluate the DEP incorporated into a smartphone-based electronic clinical decision-support (eCDS) tool. The DEP calculated the probability of viral etiology of diarrhea, based on dynamic patient-specific and location-specific features. Physicians were randomized in the first 4-week study period to the intervention arm (eCDS with the DEP) or control arm (eCDS without the DEP), followed by a 1-week washout period before a subsequent 4-week crossover period. The study was conducted at 3 sites in Bangladesh from November 17, 2021, to January 21, 2021, and at 4 sites in Mali from January 6, 2021, to March 5, 2021. Eligible physicians were those who treated children with diarrhea. Eligible patients were children between ages 2 and 59 months with acute diarrhea and household access to a cell phone for follow-up.

Interventions Use of the eCDS with the DEP (intervention arm) vs use of the eCDS without the DEP (control arm).

Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome was the proportion of children prescribed an antibiotic.

Results A total of 30 physician participants and 941 patient participants (57.1% male; median [IQR] age, 12 [8-18] months) were enrolled. There was no evidence of a difference in the proportion of children prescribed antibiotics by physicians using the DEP (risk difference [RD], −4.2%; 95% CI, −10.7% to 1.0%). In a post hoc analysis that accounted for the predicted probability of a viral-only etiology, there was a statistically significant difference in risk of antibiotic prescription between the DEP and control arms (RD, −0.056; 95% CI, −0.128 to −0.01). No known adverse effects of the DEP were detected at 10-day postdischarge.

Conclusions and Relevance Use of a tool that provides an estimate of etiological likelihood did not result in a significant change in overall antibiotic prescriptions. Post hoc analysis suggests that a higher predicted probability of viral etiology was linked to reductions in antibiotic use.

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