Assessment of antibacterial drug utilization patterns and antibiogram in infectious diseases: a prospective cross-sectional study.

Background: Antibacterial drugs are successful in combating most types of infections. Irrational use and higher consumption of these drugs can give rise to the antibiotic resistance globally. Objective: To evaluate antibacterial drug prescribing patterns and antibiogram in infectious disease cases admitted to the hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional, observational study was conducted from September 2019 to February 2020 among inpatients ward at the hospital after ethical approval. All the data was analysed by the mean and percentage values using Microsoft excel. Results: Out of 250 admitted patients, males and females were 156 (62%) and 94 (38%) respectively. The majority of patients 79 (32%) belonged to the age group of 20–40 years. The majority of prescriptions reported were for viral fever 48 (19%), lower respiratory tract infections 40 (16%) and dengue 33 (13%). Antibacterial drugs administered through the intravenous route and the oral route were 301 (83%) and 63 (17%) respectively. The most frequently utilized antibacterial drugs were beta-lactam class ceftriaxone 149 (60%) and the fixed-dose combination, amoxicillin plus clavulanic acid 65 (26%). Further highly prescribed antibacterial drugs were metronidazole 52 (21%), azithromycin 36 (15%), and levofloxacin 24 (10%). In Gram-negative bacteria, Escherichia coli 6 (30%) contributed majorly, while in Gram-positive coagulase-negative, Staphylococci 6 (30%) contributed the highest growth of bacteria for the specific infections in the admitted cases. Conclusion: Ceftriaxone and the amoxicillin-clavulanic acid combination were highly prescribed among all antibacterial drugs, followed by metronidazole and azithromycin. The current study showed that in the antibiogram pattern, Escherichia coli and coagulase-negative Staphylococci contributed significantly as causative organisms for infectious disease cases. The present study highlighted demographic distribution, infectious diseases with their antibacterial drug utilization patterns and antibiogram assessment in the admitted patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]