An Audit of Antibiotic Prescribing Pattern Among Children in Emergency Settings of a Tertiary Medical College and Hospital

Abstract

Background: Resistance to antimicrobials is increasing, which leads to a significant increase in mortality, morbidity, and health care costs. In order to promote rational antibiotic uses, standard policies must be set and can be done only after the current antibiotic prescription has been audited. Objective: The aim of the study was to describe the antibiotic prescribing patterns in the pediatric emergency of a tertiary care hospital. Methods: The data were collected from the pediatric emergency over the period of 6 consecutive days from August 6, 2018 to August 11, 2018. The methodology recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the investigation of drug use in a health facility was followed. The data were analyzed for the percentage of antibiotics prescribed by generic name, prescribed from essential medicine list of government, drugs with fixed-dose combination, and percentage of broad- and narrow-spectrum antibiotics used. Result: A total of 600 prescriptions were analyzed in the study. Most of the children were less than 1 year of age (30.8%). Combination of three antibiotics were prescribed in 8.8 % of patients. A 100% of antibiotics were prescribed from the essential drug list. Antimicrobials prescribed by generic name were 52%. Injection ceftriaxone was the commonest antibiotic prescribed (43.3%), followed by amikacin (25.2%). The broad- and narrow-spectrum antibiotics prescribed were 86.6% and 13.4 %, respectively. Conclusion: The antibiotics are used cautiously in the paediatrics emergency department of this institute. Among those who were prescribed antibiotics, all prescriptions were from the essential drug formulary. Our findings provide support for investigating antibiotic utilization in other settings and work toward developing a national rational prescribing strategy.