Prescribing trends of Antibiotics among Pediatrics in two tertiary care Hospitals in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Objective: To assess the pattern of antibiotics use among pediatrics in two tertiary care hospitals in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Methods: The study was conducted from 1st December, 2016 to 30th April, 2017 in two tertiary care hospitals of Lahore, Punjab province of Pakistan. Sampling population consisted of 322 pediatric patients aged <18 years, suffering from any disease. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM Corp. Released 2012. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) and Microsoft Excel, 2013 were used to analyze the data. P-value < .05 was taken as the mark of significance for statistical tests. Results: The most frequently diagnosed infections among the study population were; gastrointestinal tract infections (n = 136, 42.2%), fever (n = 117, 36.3%) and upper respiratory tract infections (n = 79, 24.5%). Cephalosporins (n = 235, 73%), penicillins (n = 80, 24.8%), and fluoroquinolones (n = 76, 23.6%) were most frequently prescribed antibiotic classes. Most frequently prescribed antibiotics agents were; ceftriaxone (n = 235, 73%), ciprofloxacin (n = 76, 23.6%) and co-amoxiclav (n = 71, 22%). Frequently prescribed antibiotics combinations were; co-amoxiclav+ceftriaxone (n = 42, 13%), ceftriaxone+vancomycin (n = 26, 8.1%) and ceftriaxone+ciprofloxacin (n = 12, 3.7%). The parenteral route was most commonly used for the administration of antibiotics. Conclusions: Current study concluded that antibiotic prescribing in pediatrics is quite high, an unfavorable trend which paves the way towards antimicrobial resistance.