A retrospective cross-sectional study of antibiotics prescribing patterns in admitted patients at a tertiary care setting in the KSA

OBJECTIVE: Little is known about the pattern of antibiotics’ prescribing for hospitalized adult patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study explored the prescribing practices of antibiotics in a large tertiary care setting serving diverse population. METHODS: This retrospective cross-sectional study included 1.666 antibiotic prescriptions prescribed over a period of 3 months (January 2016–March 2016) in an adult inpatient department of King Saud Medical City (KSMC). Data were collected from pharmacy electronic database. The World Health Organization (WHO) prescribing indicators were also used. RESULTS: Of the 13.414 prescriptions in pharmacy database, percentage share of antibiotic prescriptions was 12.41. The average number of drugs per encounter was 1.2. 61% of the prescriptions contained parenteral antibiotics. The percentage of drugs prescribed from essential drug list and by generic name was 100% in each indicator. The most frequently prescribed antibiotics were cefuroxime (19.44%), piperacillin/tazobactam (16.30%), and cefazolin (13.85%). Ciprofloxacin and ceftriaxone were prescribed without stated indications in 62 prescriptions. Restricted antibiotic such as meropenem was prescribed without a diagnosis in 52 prescriptions. CONCLUSION: This study gathered baseline data pertinent to the prudent use of antibiotics in KSMC. The diagnosis was not documented in more than one-third of the admission episodes. Majority of the antibiotics were broad spectrum. Three prescribing indicators shows deviation from the WHO’s standard values while prescribing from essential drug list and by generic name was not a problem in this setting. There is a need to explore the impact of prescriptions lacked indication on patient’s safety.