Antibiotic Prescription Patterns Study in Surgical Intensive Care Unit

Introduction: This study aimed to assess Antibiotic prescription patterns study in surgical intensive care unit. Materials and methods: This was a prospective, observational study of antibiotic prescribing patterns at admission into the surgical ICU. The prescription data on 100 consecutive patients at admission into the surgical ICU was audited. Patients of all age of either gender admitted in the surgical ICU during the study period, who have been prescribed with antibiotics. The study was conducted over a period of eight months from August 2022 march 2023. During this period, all the included patients were followed up for their entire duration of stay in surgical ICU. Results: The prescriptions of 100 consecutive patients admitted into the ICU were analyzed. This included 68 male and 32 female patients. Most of the patients admitted in SICU were of the age groups 20-40 years. Most of the patients admitted in surgical ICU of 35-65 age group and two/three antibiotics prescription was statistically significant (P<0.05) in compare to one/ more than three antibiotic prescription in that age group. Those patients were stayed < 6 days or > 10 days mostly prescribed two or three antibiotics. The mortality rate was 31% in surgical intensive care unit. 69% patients were transferred to different wards of the hospital. The mortality rate was high before 7 days (67.7%) as compared to after 07 days (32.25%). The average duration of stay in surgical ICU was 7.18 days and average number of drugs prescribed was 6.2. The average duration of antimicrobials including all prescribed antibiotics to 100 surgical ICU patients was 6.97. There were 16(16%) single antibiotic prescriptions, 36 (36%) prescription contained 2 antibiotics, 45 (45%) prescriptions contained 3 antibiotics and 03 prescriptions contained more than 3 (3 %) antibiotics. Highest prescribed antibiotic group was cephalosporin (25.10%) followed by carbapenems (20.85%) in surgical intensive care unit. Conclusion: In conclusion, our study reveals that antibiotics continue to be widely prescribed in critically ill patients of surgical intensive care unit.