A Study on Antibiotics Usage Trends: Insights from Drug Utilization Evaluation

PURPOSE: The main aim of the study was to evaluate the antibiotics usage trends in a tertiary care setting through drug utilization evaluation technique. METHODOLOGY: It is a hospital based prospective observational study conducted in inpatients of 5 different departments. The duration of study was 6 months. A total of 207 patients were enrolled in the study as per the inclusion criteria. The data was collected from the patient case reports/case sheets, and a questionnaire was performed. The data collected was recorded, analyzed and results were extracted. RESULTS: According to our study, most of the patients receiving antibiotics were in the age group of 31-40 years. Most of the antibiotics are used in the general surgery department. Most of the patients were prescribed one antibiotic, 93.2%of patients were prescribed antibiotics without any prior microbial culture test. Generic prescribing of antibiotics is only 13%. The most prescribed antibiotics were Monocef (ceftriaxone) followed by Amikacin, Augmentin etc. CONCLUSION: Our study concluded that most of the antibiotics were prescribed in brand names. Irrational prescribing of antibiotics, like the prescribing of antibiotics without culture sensitivity tests and prescribing of parenteral antibiotics for longer durations was observed.