Prescribing Pattern of Antimicrobials in the Department of General Medicine

Abstract

Background: Antibiotics are extensively used for the treatment of minor, moderate both life threatening and minor infections. Irrational use of antibiotics increases the risk of bacterial resistance. Hence, the present study was aimed to assess the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the Department of General Medicine in a tertiary care hospital. Methodology: A prospective observational study was carried out at the Department of General Medicine, M.S. Ramaiah Medical Teaching hospital, Bangalore, India over a period of five months from January 2015 to May 2015. Patient’s case sheets, treatment charts and laboratory investigation were used as the source of data. Results: The mean age of the study population and duration of hospitalization was 38.54±12.27 and 6.15±2.56 days respectively and the mean number of antimicrobials per prescription was 1.44±0.74. The total number of antibiotics prescribed was 197. The most commonly prescribed antibiotic classes were cephalosporin (62.43%) among which ceftriaxone was the most commonly prescribed drug. Conclusions: As antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drugs therefore development of antibiotic use policy is very essential not only to prevent antibiotic resistance but also to reduce the treatment expenditure.

Keywords

• Antibiotics
• Prescribing Pattern
• Drug Resistance
• Antimicrobials