Abstract
Objective: Antimicrobials are the class of drugs that are used irrationally in most cases leading to rise in instances of antimicrobial resistance altering the effect of such agents. Antimicrobial resistance has become a critical issue universally nerving the need to monitor the utilization pattern and rationality in prescribing of antibiotics. This helps in selection of most appropriate antibiotic for the specific patient and achieving the goals of the therapy. Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study with a sample size of 600 participants was conducted in department of general medicine of a tertiary care hospital. Inpatients prescribed with antibiotics were included in the study and their case sheets were reviewed to analyzing the prescribing pattern. The medication usage pattern was then assessed for rationality in prescribing was evaluated. The results obtained were statistically analyzed using SPSS Software. Results: It is noted that a more number of males participated and the greatest number of the patients were from the age group of 31-45. The diagnosis found in the majority of the patients was respiratory tract infection followed by others. On scrutinizing the prescriptions, it was noted that cephalosporins and penicillins were most often prescribed, and on an average single, antibiotic was frequently used with the preferred route of administration in most of the prescriptions being injection route. Though many of the antibiotics were prescribed empirically, it was observed that 59% of them were most appropriately dosed and maximum patients that are around 57% were cured from their illnesses. Conclusion: This study provided important baseline information on antimicrobial use within a large tertiary care teaching hospital and identified potential targets for future antimicrobial stewardship programs. The culture and sensitivity testing suggested that the drug resistance was more for most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the hospital. Increased targeted prescribing based on sensitivity tests will bring down the high use of empiric broad-spectrum antibiotic use.
Highlights
Antimicrobials are the significant class of drugs that are prescribed by the physicians against various bacterial infections
Among the 600 patients who participated in the study, 132 of them were under the age group of 13–30, 150 of them were under 31–45, 120 of them were under 46–60, 138 were under the group 61–75 and only 60 of them were above the age of 75 years, maximum number of patients were in the age group of 31–45 years that is 25% of the population
On evaluating the usage pattern of antibiotics, it is observed that cephalosporins is the class of drugs that was mostly prescribed with a prescription percentage of 36.64% followed by penicillins accounting for 35.08 % of prescriptions and fluoroquinolones accounting for 11.49% of prescriptions
Summary
Antimicrobials are the significant class of drugs that are prescribed by the physicians against various bacterial infections. They are produced by microorganisms naturally or may be produced synthetically in laboratories. Later in 1928, the discovery of Penicillin, a beta lactam antibiotic, by Alexander Fleming opened up the golden era of antibiotics. It marked a revolution in the treatment of infectious diseases and stimulated new efforts to synthesize newer antibiotics. The period between 1950s and 1970s is considered the golden era of discovery of novel antibiotic classes, with very few classes discovered since [2]
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