Antibiotic utilization evaluation of inpatient and outpatient prescriptions in a rural general hospital in Iran.
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Date
2015-05
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Abstract
Background: High rate of antibiotic prescription is commonly encountered in hospital
settings. Although the problem of the irrational use of antibiotics is particularly acute
in rural health centers of developing countries, antibiotic utilization studies in such
areas are scarce. In this study, we aimed to compare antibiotic prescription patterns
between inpatients and outpatients in a rural general hospital.
Methods: Inpatient and outpatient records were evaluated during a 1-month period.
Data including patients’ demographics, length of hospital stay, final diagnosis,
antibiotic regimen, dosing, rout of administration, microbiological culture/sensitivity
tests and other laboratory data were retrieved from the hospital information system.
Results: The number of prescriptions with at least one antibiotic was 686/1410 (48.6%)
cases and 3812/6126 (62.2%) cases for inpatient and outpatient prescriptions,
respectively. The mean number of antibiotic per prescription was 1.7±0.7 and 1.3±0.8
for inpatient and outpatients, respectively (p<0.05). Ceftriaxone had the highest
rate of prescription among hospitalized patients with 791 (35.2%) times encounter
while penicillin constituted the largest proportion of outpatient administrations with
2505 (29.8%) times. About 79% of inpatient and 62% of outpatient prescriptions
containing final diagnosis data had the correct indication.
Conclusion: Our study showed that implementation of strict regulations for antibiotic
use is extremely needed in this rural hospital. Establishing local guidelines, providing
adequate education for healthcare professionals and putting restrictions for broadspectrum
antibiotic use can be beneficial.
Description
Keywords
Drug utilization evaluation, Antibiotics, Rational prescription, Rural, Bacterial resistance
Citation
Forough Aida Sefidani, Hosseini Seyed Reza, Jabbari Shiva. Antibiotic utilization evaluation of inpatient and outpatient prescriptions in a rural general hospital in Iran. International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology. 2015 May-Jun; 4(3): 531-536.