The drug use to treat community-acquired pneumonia in children: A cross-sectional study in China

To evaluate the rationality of drug use to treat community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children of a Chinese hospital using a set of developed indicators. We performed a retrospective cross-sectional study in West China Second University Hospital. Hospitalized children (0–18 years old) diagnosed with CAP from October 2015 to January 2016 were included. A set of developed indicators for assessing rational drug use (RDU) to treat CAP in children were used to evaluate the rationality of drug use. The data of the indicators were compared with the recommendations of the available guidelines, analyzing the situation of drug use in the children diagnosed with CAP. Eight hundred ninety-four children were included, 99.4% of them received antibiotics and 87.4% received more than 1 antibiotic. Antibiotics were administered intravenously in 880 (99.0%) children. About 20 (2.2%) children received antiviral agents and 19 (2.1%) children received antiviral drugs combined with antibiotics. About 208 (23.3%) children received traditional Chinese medicines and the injection of traditional Chinese medicines was given in 20 (2.2%) children. This study illustrated that drug use was partly not consistent with the recommendations of current guidelines, especially antibiotics. The drug use of CAP in children needs to pay more attention to.