Antibiotic prescribing patterns in dentistry at national hospital.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the antibiotic prescribing patterns of Dentistry at Muhimbili National hospital. METHODOLOGY: Between April and May 2011, all Fifty dentists of Muhimbili National Hospital were given self - administered questionnaires and 311 prescriptions were analyzed for antibiotic prescribing patterns. A total of 50 questionnaires were distributed. The data was entered and analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software program (version 16.0). And association between Factors was analyzed using X2 test. RESULTS: The response rate was 68%. The respondents reported writing an average of 4.41 prescriptions per clay. Antibiotics predominantly prescribed were Metronidazole and Amoxicillin and they are usually prescribed in combination. Recommended adult dose for these antibiotics were prescribed by all the respondents. The average prescription duration was 5 days. The MNH dentists had an overall good antibiotic prescribing knowledge however the dentists still prescribed antibiotics for dental caries, pulpitis, and pain, generalized calculus, scaling and polishing or routine cleaning which did not require use of antibiotics. Also the dentists prescribed antibiotics in patients with history of rheumatic heart fever, with heart murmur, patient with prosthetic heart valve and for a number of procedures in diabetic patients. However, patients with prosthetic heart valve were the only high Risk patients who required prophylaxis for the bacterial end cordites. Also we can see that over 33.3%, 33.3%, 45.8%, 46.2%, 57.1% and 88.9% of the dentists were unaware of prescribing guidelines for sinusitis, periocoronitis, Dental abscess, Oral infection and Acute Necrotizing Ulcerative Gingivitis (AUG) respectively. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that, the dentists prescribe antibiotics irrationally to some extent. Inappropriate antibiotic application was evident by dentists for patients with dry socket, pulpitis, extraction of single tooth, pain, generalized calculus, scaling and polishing and routine cleaning