A Prospective Study on Cephalosporin Consumption Pattern at Trust-Based Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the Drug usage of 3 rd generation cephalosporins and its effectiveness against particular diagnosis. A Prospective cross-sectional study was conducted at 40 Bedded Pediatric wards of Sukkur Blood Bank, Donating Society and Hospital, Sukkur to evaluate the antibiotic usage pattern among all admitted in-patients. Patients’ demographic details were recorded from the Patient Bedside File (PBF). Data were analyzed using an excel sheet and Microsoft SPSS 20. Among all admitted patients, 1710 patients met the inclusion criteria and their PBF were evaluated for antibiotics. A total of 2155 cephalosporins were prescribed. The most commonly prescribed cephalosporins among the study population were Ceftriaxone 51.55% followed by Cefotaxime Sodium (26.50%). Among all, 74.34% pediatric patients were prescribed antibiotics through the parenteral route and 25.66% through the oral route. Antibiotics were being used without having any official national antibiotic policy or institutional protocols, which are currently lacking in the country. The study findings shall assist the health department and hospital management to devise the official guidelines to ensure rational usage of antibiotics. It is therefore recommended that the government should immediately address the irrational and overuse of antibiotics by implementing, national antibiotics policy, antibiotic stewardship programs, and training of healthcare staff. Novelty of this paper consists of collection of large-scale data, also data from diversified population was collected, as this study was conducted in public, private, and also charity-based hospitals. Keywords: pediatrics, antibiotics, cephalosporins, consumption pattern, culture sensitivity test. https://doi.org/10.55463/issn.1674-2974.50.1.29