A Study on Appropriateness of Antibacterial Use in Acute Wards of a Teaching Hospital

Objective: A study to analyse the appropriateness of use of antibacterials in acute wards of a tertiary care hospital. Design: A pharmacoepidemiological research study. Intervention: Non-interventional descriptive study. Main Outcome Measure: The antibacterial prescriptions were analyzed for their adherence to or deviation from the standard national treatment guidelines. Results: There were a total of 207 patients comprising of 35 in acute medical ward, 65 in ICU, 53 in acute surgical ward and 54 in family ward, who were prescribed antibacterials. These consisted of a total of 383 prescription counts for appropriateness of AMA use. One third of the antibacterial prescriptions of inpatients surveyed were for prophylactic use followed by the treatment of respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases. The highest prescription counts were seen with carbapenems followed by nitroimidazoles, cephalosporins, aminoglycosides and penicillins. 99% of the prescriptions were appropriate for the dose used and 49.6% of the prescriptions were inappropriate for duration of use. 74.5% of the surgical prophylaxis prescriptions were used for more than 24 hours. Ceftriaxone and cefotaxime were used instead of the recommended cefazolin, for prophylaxis. High percentage of deviation was observed with prescriptions of cefotaxime and metronidazole for empirical use. No definitive use of antimicrobials for infections was observed in the ICU. Conclusion: A high percentage of appropriateness was observed for dose of antibiotic used. The main targets identified for improvement are duration of antimicrobial use, choice of drug for surgical prophylaxis and the definitive use of antimicrobial agents. Keywords: adherence to treatment guidelines, antibiotic audit, antimicrobials