EVALUATION OF RATIONAL USE OF ANTIBIOTIC DRUGS IN SURGERY DEPARTMENT AT A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Abstract

Objective: Antibiotics are the only drug where use in one patient can impact the effectiveness in another, so antibiotic misuse adversely impacts the patients and society. Improving antibiotic use improves patient outcomes and saves money. Antibiotic resistance has been identified as a major threat by the WHO due to the lack of development of new antibiotics and the increasing infections caused by multidrug resistance pathogens became untreatable.

Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted for a period of 6 months. Data were collected from prescriptions and inpatient record files at the surgery department of the tertiary care hospital. Patients above age of 18 years of either gender whose prescription containing the antibiotics and patients who are willing to participate in the study were included in the study. Microsoft Excel was used for recording and analyzing the data of recruited subjects.

Results: During our study period, we have collected 100 cases as per inclusion criteria, in total collected 100 cases, 52% are male and 48% are female. The mean age and standard deviation of the study population were found to be 46.61±16.12. The most commonly prescribed classification before and after the surgery is cephalosporin’s that is 57%. Results show that in pre-surgery, almost 93% of prescriptions have chosen the drugs as per ASHP guidelines, whereas in post-surgery, 95% of drugs have selected the drug as per ASHP guidelines.

Conclusion: Our study has observed that some of the prescriptions are irrationally prescribed so the pharmacist has to take the responsibility to improve the awareness regarding rational prescribing of antibiotics. The national wide monitoring of antibiotics use, national schemes to obtain rational use of antibiotics, reassessing the prescriptions, education to practitioners, and surveys on antibiotics should be implemented.