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Patterns of Antibiotic Prescription in Children: Tirana, Albania Region

BACKGROUND: Antibiotics (abx) constitute the most prescribed therapeutic agent in the world. There is little data regarding antibiotic consumption by young children in Albania. AIM: This study aims to evaluate antibiotic prescription in children in quantitative and qualitative terms, and therefore,...

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Autores principales: Mihani, Joana, Këlliçi, Suela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Republic of Macedonia 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5927510/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29731947
http://dx.doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2018.150
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author Mihani, Joana
Këlliçi, Suela
author_facet Mihani, Joana
Këlliçi, Suela
author_sort Mihani, Joana
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Antibiotics (abx) constitute the most prescribed therapeutic agent in the world. There is little data regarding antibiotic consumption by young children in Albania. AIM: This study aims to evaluate antibiotic prescription in children in quantitative and qualitative terms, and therefore, propose recommendations to improve overall clinical outcomes. METHODS: A retrospective, cross-sectional drug utilisation study was conducted based on unreimbursed prescriptions collected in 25 pharmacies, randomly selected within the district of Tirana, during the period beginning December 2015 to January 2016. They contain at least one antibacterial therapeutic agent prescribed for children 0-15 years old, for systemic use. The data were analysed using SPSS 20. RESULTS: A group of 904 prescriptions meet inclusion criteria, 54.1% patient were female, and 45.9% were male. The most exposed age group were 2-6 years old. The most common diagnosis was respiratory tract infections: bronchitis (59.2%), tonsillitis (17%) followed by bronchopneumonia (9.6%). The most prescribed antibiotic classes are Penicillins (33%), Cephalosporins (33.2%) and Macrolides (21,5%). Amoxicillin (19.4%), Azithromycin (14.7%), the combination of Amoxicillin and Clavulanic acid (13.5%) and Cefaclor (11.7%) were the most commonly prescribed. We observed short duration therapies, with a mean duration of 5.21 days and in 17.4 % of cases with a duration of ≤ 2 days. CONCLUSIONS: We observed a large use of broad-spectrum antibiotics for common respiratory tract infection in children less than 6 years old. We would recommend the creation of an electronic database of patient’s record in order to monitor the quality of prescription and education of the healthcare professionals and patient of risks related to antibiotic resistance.
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spelling pubmed-59275102018-05-04 Patterns of Antibiotic Prescription in Children: Tirana, Albania Region Mihani, Joana Këlliçi, Suela Open Access Maced J Med Sci Public Health BACKGROUND: Antibiotics (abx) constitute the most prescribed therapeutic agent in the world. There is little data regarding antibiotic consumption by young children in Albania. AIM: This study aims to evaluate antibiotic prescription in children in quantitative and qualitative terms, and therefore, propose recommendations to improve overall clinical outcomes. METHODS: A retrospective, cross-sectional drug utilisation study was conducted based on unreimbursed prescriptions collected in 25 pharmacies, randomly selected within the district of Tirana, during the period beginning December 2015 to January 2016. They contain at least one antibacterial therapeutic agent prescribed for children 0-15 years old, for systemic use. The data were analysed using SPSS 20. RESULTS: A group of 904 prescriptions meet inclusion criteria, 54.1% patient were female, and 45.9% were male. The most exposed age group were 2-6 years old. The most common diagnosis was respiratory tract infections: bronchitis (59.2%), tonsillitis (17%) followed by bronchopneumonia (9.6%). The most prescribed antibiotic classes are Penicillins (33%), Cephalosporins (33.2%) and Macrolides (21,5%). Amoxicillin (19.4%), Azithromycin (14.7%), the combination of Amoxicillin and Clavulanic acid (13.5%) and Cefaclor (11.7%) were the most commonly prescribed. We observed short duration therapies, with a mean duration of 5.21 days and in 17.4 % of cases with a duration of ≤ 2 days. CONCLUSIONS: We observed a large use of broad-spectrum antibiotics for common respiratory tract infection in children less than 6 years old. We would recommend the creation of an electronic database of patient’s record in order to monitor the quality of prescription and education of the healthcare professionals and patient of risks related to antibiotic resistance. Republic of Macedonia 2018-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5927510/ /pubmed/29731947 http://dx.doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2018.150 Text en Copyright: © 2018 Joana Mihani, Suela Këlliçi. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/CC BY-NC/4.0 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
spellingShingle Public Health
Mihani, Joana
Këlliçi, Suela
Patterns of Antibiotic Prescription in Children: Tirana, Albania Region
title Patterns of Antibiotic Prescription in Children: Tirana, Albania Region
title_full Patterns of Antibiotic Prescription in Children: Tirana, Albania Region
title_fullStr Patterns of Antibiotic Prescription in Children: Tirana, Albania Region
title_full_unstemmed Patterns of Antibiotic Prescription in Children: Tirana, Albania Region
title_short Patterns of Antibiotic Prescription in Children: Tirana, Albania Region
title_sort patterns of antibiotic prescription in children: tirana, albania region
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5927510/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29731947
http://dx.doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2018.150
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