Infection Prevention and Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship Across Primary Care, Emergency Services, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Critical Care, Hemodialysis, and Laboratory Practice: A Multidisciplinary Narrative Review

Healthcare-associated infection remains one of the most frequent adverse events in health care and continues to affect patients across hospitals, ambulatory settings, long-term care, dialysis units, dental services, and other points of contact in the continuum of care. At the same time, antimicrobial resistance has emerged as one of the leading global public health threats, with misuse and overuse of antimicrobial agents accelerating the spread of drug-resistant pathogens and increasing the clinical and economic burden of infectious disease. In response, the World Health Organization and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have framed Journal of Clinical Practice and Medical Research (ISSN 3083-7146]Volume 2 | Number 4 | July-August 202633infection prevention and control (IPC) as an essential systems function rather than a narrow task assigned to a single profession, and they have emphasized that core IPC practices must be implemented across all settings where health care is delivered. This narrative review examines the scientific and operational foundations of IPC and its integration with antimicrobial stewardship across professional groups that include family medicine consultants, pharmacy technicians, emergency medical services personnel, health administration specialists, dental assistant technicians, critical care nursing advisors, hemodialysis technicians, and medical laboratory technicians. The review was designed to mimic the structure of established review articles by moving from burden and rationale to the literature base, programme components, applied domains of practice, profession-specific implications, implementation barriers, and future directions. The synthesis draws primarily on authoritative WHO and CDC guidance, evidence-based WHO recommendations on IPC core components, and review literature addressing infection control programmes, team-based delivery, and environmental contamination in health care settings. The reviewed literature consistently supports several major conclusions. First, a substantial proportion of healthcare-associated infections are preventable through organized IPC programmes that combine governance, trained personnel, surveillance, standard precautions, transmission-based precautions, environmental hygiene, and continuous monitoring with feedback. Second, IPC and antimicrobial stewardship are mutually reinforcing because prevention of avoidable infection reduces unnecessary antimicrobial exposure, preserves antimicrobial effectiveness, and improves patient safety. Third, the same core principles can be adapted to highly diverse clinical roles, although the operational details vary according to patient population, infrastructure, workflow, and procedure-related risk. Finally, successful implementation depends not only on technical knowledge but also on leadership, staffing, procurement, education, occupational health support, laboratory capacity, and a culture of safety. A multidisciplinary, systems-oriented IPC framework therefore offers a scientifically sound review topic for multiple allied and clinical professions and remains highly relevant to safe practice, quality improvement, and publication-oriented academic work.