Study of prescription pattern of antimicrobials used in post-operative surgical patients in tertiary care hospital

Background: Antimicrobials are used for prophylaxis and treatment of infections which occur following surgical procedures, to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with surgical site infections (SSIs). A surgical site infection is an infection that occurs after surgery in the part of the body where the surgery took place. These are infections of the tissues, organs, or spaces exposed by surgeons during performance of an invasive procedure. Methods: A prospective, non-interventional, observational study in tertiary care hospital for duration of 9 months. Sample size was 330. Results: The prescription pattern shows that nitroimidazoles were the most commonly prescribed group of antimicrobials in 72% of patients followed by penicillins (58%) and cephalosporins (42%). Metronidazole (72%), amoxicillin and clavulanic acid (51.21%) ceftriaxone (20.90%) were most commonly prescribed antimicrobials in these groups. Two antimicrobials were prescribed in 47% patients with nitroimidazole and penicillins being the most commonly prescribed combination of antimicrobial. Three antimicrobials were prescribed in 25% patients and four antimicrobials in 8% patients. This shows trend towards polypharmacy. About 82% of antimicrobials were prescribed by brand names and 64% of total antimicrobials prescribed from outside the hospital pharmacy source. About 12.42% of patients changed antimicrobial therapy after culture and sensitivity report. Conclusions: Total duration, number of anti-microbial used was more in clean-contaminated, contaminated, dirty wound surgeries as compare to clean wound surgeries. Our study provides a framework for continuous prescription audit of antimicrobials in a hospital setting and thus can help in rational use of antimicrobials in post-operative surgical patients.