Evaluation of antibiotic use and prescription patterns using World Health Organization indicators for paediatric inpatients in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Objectives: Antibiotics play a crucial role in treating infectious diseases in paediatrics. A thorough understanding of prescribing patterns is imperative to enhance awareness and ensure the prudent use of antibiotics to continue deriving their benefits while preventing antibiotic resistance. Hence, evaluating the prescription pattern helps in identifying and discerning the occurrence of such adverse outcomes. Our study aimed to evaluate antibiotic prescribing patterns in paediatric patients using World Health Organisation (WHO) prescribing indicators. Material and Methods: This hospital-based prospective cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted for 6 months among 300 paediatric inpatients. The data on ongoing prescription trends were collected using a self-designed data collection form and compared with the WHO core prescribing indicators. Furthermore, we classified antibiotics based on the Anatomical Therapeutic Classification. Results: Of the 300 participants, 60.0% were male, and 40.0% were female. Infants aged 1 month to 1 year constituted 45.0% (135/300) of the cohort and were more prone to infections. When classified by system affected, respiratory tract infections were most prevalent, with 62.3%, and the most common infection was pneumonia, accounting for 26.3%. In this study, the prescribing pattern of antibiotics in the hospital deviates from and is non-compliant with the standards endorsed by WHO. Conclusion: The study shows that the prescribing pattern of antibiotics in paediatrics deviates from the endorsed standard WHO prescribing indicators, which explains the need to establish an antimicrobial stewardship program in the paediatric setting to avoid Antibiotic resistance.