Publication:

A study on prescribing pattern of cephalosporins utilization and its compliance towards the hospital antibiotic policy in surgery ward of a tertiary care teaching hospital in India

Background Extensive use of antibiotics is prevalent throughout India, and this is a matter of serious concern. There are several reports linking antibiotic usage to resistance. Towards addressing this problem, assessment of current prescribing pattern of antibiotics needs to be undertaken to monitor its appropriate use. This study was meant to assess the utilization of cephalosporins and its compliance towards the hospital antibiotic policy in surgery ward of a tertiary care teaching hospital.

Methods A prospective observational study was conducted with 250 inpatients of surgery ward. The demographic details, lab investigations, clinical diagnosis and current treatment were noted. The collected data was analysed for utilization of cephalosporin using World Health Organization (WHO) core prescribing indicators and defined daily dose per 100 bed-days. The hospital antibiotic policy was used as a benchmark for analyzing compliance of therapy.

Results Out of 250 patients, 69% was male and 31.2% was female population with mean age of 42.12±17.33 years. Majority of cases were clean-contaminated (36%) followed by clean (30.4%) and contaminated (17.6%) wounds. The average number of overall antibiotics and cephalosporins per encounter was 2.1 and 1 respectively. Among the total parenteral antibiotics, 63.9% were cephalosporins. Cephalosporins utilization was 2.68 DDD per 100 bed-days. Compliance with all the stated criteria was observed only in 124 (49.6%) patients.

Conclusions The rate of prescribing of cephalosporins has increased evidently which may result in the occurrence of bacterial resistance. A suboptimal rate of compliance recommends a strict monitoring in the usage of cephalosporins with periodical updation of policy.