The Effect of Antibiotic Use on Microorganism Distribution and Antibiotic Resistance in Hospital Infections in the Covid-19 Pandemic

Objective: COVID-19 pneumonia, which has affected the whole world for more than two years, has forced the health system. In this period, when the delivery of health services is in danger, the use of appropriate antibiotics has remained in the background. With this study, we wanted to investigate the effect of changing antibiotic use during the pandemic period on the distribution of microorganisms that cause nosocomial infections and changing antibiotic resistances. Methods: The study was carried out in the Dışkapı Yıldırım Beyazıt Training and Research Hospital. Hospital-acquired infections caused by E. coli, Klebsiella penumonia, Enterobacter spp., P. aeruginosa and Acinetobacter spp. between 2016 and 2020 were evaluated for our study. We classified the patients in 2016 as 1st group, 2017 as a 2nd group, 2018 as a 3rd group, 2019 as a 4th group, 2020 as a 5th group. The groups were compared with each other in terms of the rate of hospital-acquired infection, their resistance status and the amount of antibiotics used in the relevant years. The factors that showed significant difference only in the 5th year were attributed to the changing health services during the pandemic period and were examined. Results: The most commonly used antibiotic in our study was ceftriaxone with a DDD of 150.72. Piperacillin + tazobactam and levofloxacin were the second and third most commonly used antibiotics, respectively.The amount of piperacillin + tazobactam use attributed to the pandemic period is significantly higher in the 5th group than in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th groups. Meropenem, levofloxacin, and colistin, which had increased usage during the pandemic period, were not attributed to the pandemic period since they did not differ with all other groups in pairwise comparisons. There was no change in the rates of microorganisms causing hospital infections for the pandemic period. Piperacillin resistance rate at 5th group for K. pneumonia and E. coli was significantly higher than at 1, 2, 3 and 4 groups. There was a positive correlation between the use of piperacillin/tazobactam and piperacillin resistance for K. pneumoniae and E. coli. Conclusion: In our study, we found that the use of piperacillin/tazobactam and levofloxacin in our hospital increased significantly during the pandemic period. There was no significant increase in the correlation between increasing antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance. Resistant strains, which will be triggered by the increasing amount of antibiotic consumption during the pandemic period, will be a problem that should be followed up in the coming years © 2022. Turk Hijyen ve Deneysel Biyoloji Dergisi.All Rights Reserved.