Drug Utilization Study of Antibiotic in Medicine Department of a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital: A Descriptive Observational Study

Abstract

Drug utilization studies are useful in the drug reforming required resistance and sensitivity to improving the standards of medical treatment at all levels in health system. It also helps in the identification of problems creates with drug use. The aim of this study was to evaluate the number of antibiotics prescribed per prescription according to the indication and cultural report of infected patients. Methods: This was a descriptive observational study. Over a period of six months from November 2016 to April 2017, about 150 patients who were prescribed antibiotics were included in the study. The data on antibiotic containing prescriptions from each patient was collected from the inpatient of medicine department and entered in a specially designed case report form. The study was carried out in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Result: A total of 150 prescription cases were analysed. It was observed that out of 150 patients, 54 were male (36%) and 96 were female (64%). Out of 150 patients, 90 (60%) patients were treated empirically and 60 (40%) were treated based on their culture report. According to data analysis the maximum infection were observed with gram negative bacteria (66%) i.e. E.coli in urinary tract infection etc and with gram positive bacteria (34%) i.e. streptococcus species in septicemia, meningitis etc. For these infections commonly prescribed antibiotic were amikacin (57%) and metronidazole (25%) in single therapy respectively. The route of administration used for these antibiotic was intravenous (69%) as compared with oral (31%). Most of the prescriptions contained polypharmacy. Conclusion: The study was undertaken to give feedback to the prescribers, so as an overuse of injections that had increased the cost of the treatment; also, the culture sensitivity was not done before prescribing antibiotics. Patient counseling should be done for the proper use of antibiotics, culture sensitivity tests should be conducted before prescribing antibiotics.