Why carry out this study?

The national standard treatment guidelines (STGs) have become more appropriate because of using evidence on the antibacterial resistance (AMR) situation in Ethiopia.

Despite the growing number of STGs and AMR reviews in the country, a comprehensive evaluation of STGs' AMR recommendations and the quality of reviews on AMR was lacking.

This review describes the level of recommendations related to local AMR evidence in the STGs for empirical antibacterial prescriptions for five common infectious syndromes and the quality of the AMR reviews published since the national STGs were launched.

What was learned from the study?

None of the STGs evaluated included the local AMR recommendations for empirical antibiotic prescriptions for the five common infectious syndromes. More than 75% of the reviews on AMR in the county also had low and below quality, and none had a high-quality score according to the AMSTAR 2 tool.

Reviews published on AMR produced methodologically poor quality evidence for clinical applications. This highlights the need to improve the quality to provide the best available evidence for clinical decision-making and curb the ongoing AMR in the country.