Antibiotic Prescription Profiles in some Health Institutions in Kebbi State, Nigeria

The study was undertaken to evaluate antibiotic prescription pattern and usage in some health institutions in Kebbi State. This retrospective analysis of antibiotic prescription was carried out by assessing patients' medical records in ve general hospitals and a private hospital located in different regions in the state. Records such as age of patients, diagnosis, types of antibiotics prescribed&duration and type of test performed before antibiotics were prescribed were collated and analyzed. The result showed that 46.10% of the patients who visited those hospitals were prescribed antibiotics. Predominantly higher proportion of adults was prescribed antibiotics than children and more males were prescribed antibiotics than females. Culture and sensitivity tests were hardly performed in the hospitals. The predominant infection requiring antibiotic prescription was gastrointestinal in nature accounting for over 25% of infections in which antibiotics were prescribed. Regrettably however, majority of prescriptions containing antibiotics did not show any specic diagnosis rather only symptoms were recorded. The vastly employed antimicrobial agents across the six health institutions were β-lactams and metronidazole; and about half of the total number of cases did not show a treatment regimen of up to ve days. However, combination therapy is very common with an average overall percentage of 62.89%.