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. 2021 Mar 3;10(3):253.
doi: 10.3390/antibiotics10030253.

Designing a National Veterinary Prescribing Champion Programme for Welsh Veterinary Practices: The Arwain Vet Cymru Project

Gwen M Rees  1   2 , Alison Bard  2 , Kristen K Reyher  2
Affiliations

Designing a National Veterinary Prescribing Champion Programme for Welsh Veterinary Practices: The Arwain Vet Cymru Project

Gwen M Rees et al. Antibiotics (Basel). .

Abstract

Antimicrobial use in agriculture has been identified as an area of focus for reducing overall antimicrobial use and improving stewardship. In this paper, we outline the design of a complex antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) intervention aimed at developing a national Veterinary Prescribing Champion programme for Welsh farm animal veterinary practices. We describe the process by which participants were encouraged to design and deliver bespoke individualised AMS activities at practice level by forging participant "champion" identities and communities of practice through participatory and educational online activities. We describe the key phases identified as important when designing this complex intervention, namely (i) involving key collaborators in government and industry to stimulate project engagement; (ii) grounding the design in the literature, the results of stakeholder engagement, expert panel input, and veterinary clinician feedback to promote contextual relevance and appropriateness; and (iii) taking a theoretical approach to implementing intervention design to foster critical psychological needs for participant motivation and scheme involvement. With recruitment of over 80% of all farm animal practices in Wales to the programme, we also describe demographic data of the participating Welsh Veterinary Prescribing Champions in order to inform recruitment and design of future AMS programmes.

Keywords: antimicrobial stewardship; complex intervention; veterinary.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart showing the chronology of the inputs and outputs in the Arwain Vet Cymru programme.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Design map of the Arwain Vet Cymru program, identifying the key phases of the design and implementation process.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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