Prescribing Pattern of Anti-Microbials in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Objective: The main objective is to study the prescribing practice of antibiotic in a tertiary care hospital.

Methods: A retrospective follow up study of six months duration was undertaken during June-November of 2010. A total number of 16,121 patients were taken for the study. The analysis was done for the number of antimicrobials in each prescription, prescribing frequency of individual drug, number and dosage unit prescribed (DDD), age and sex frequency.

Results: The frequency of prescribing Penicillins and Cephalosporins was 81.96%, Quinolones 32.81%, Metronidazole 17.88% and Aminoglycosides 10.71%. The prescribing frequency of Penicillins, Cephalosporins, Quinolones and Aminoglycosides are significantly higher in males (P<0.001) when compared with females. Out of all antibiotics in our study, Cefotaxime is the most frequently prescribed antibiotic followed by ciprofloxacin.

Conclusion: In our present study, the combination of multiple antibiotics per prescription was very low and most of the patients did not know about the correct dosage of the drugs prescribed. The data presented here will be useful in future, long-term and more extensive drug utilization studies in the hospital and in promotion of rational prescribing and drug use in hospitals.