To study the incidence of pre-hospital antibiotic therapy among critically ill patients admitted in rural tertiary care hospital

Abstract

There is considerate amount of stress which lies in the application of antibiotics in critically ill patients. A study on pre-hospital antibiotic administration in such patients would provide crucial data and go a long way in determining and understanding trends in antibiotic prescribing, to identify where necessary steps to be taken to improve prescribing are most needed and to measure progress. Materials and Methods:  After ethical committee approval, we have conducted an observational crosssectional study for four months. We collected the data from patient or the relatives regarding prehospital antibiotic therapy on admission. Results: A total of 137 patients got admitted in the Medical intensive care unit (MICU) during the study period. Out of them, 91.24% of patients got admitted directly in MICU and 8.75% were referred from different hospitals. Those who received antibiotics prior to the admission were 2.18% and 93.43% of patients had not received antibiotics; the other patients who were not sure of antibiotic consumption were 4.37%. Among those 2.18% of patients who received, it was observed the most commonly utilized first antibiotic in our study was amoxicillin clavulanate potassium 66.66%. In all the patients that received more than one antibiotic, Metronidazole was the second antibiotic that was administered via intravenous route. Conclusion: Amoxicillin clavulanate potassium was the most commonly and metronidazole was the second most antibiotic prescribed in prehospital admission. Proper guidelines should be initiated for the starting of the antibiotic therapies in India for general practitioners. Keywords: Antibiotics, Incidence, Prehospital, Critically ill.