Drug use evaluation of cephalosporins in a tertiary care hospital

BACKGROUND: Infectious disease burden in India is among the largest in the world. Cephalosporins are being used extensively in the current scenario, both empirically and as definitive treatment. With this information, we tried to evaluate the prescription pattern of drugs for infections in medicine and general surgical wards of a tertiary care hospital and evaluate the utilization of cephalosporins in the same. METHODOLOGY: The study was conducted for a duration of 3 months in a tertiary care hospital after approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee, and permission of the respective heads of the surgery and medicine departments was obtained. After satisfying the inclusion criteria, participants' demographic details and the prescription notes by the treating doctor were noted and analyzed. The WHO prescription indicators were analyzed and the prescriptions were evaluated for the completeness of them. The utilization of cephalosporins was evaluated based on the institutional standard treatment guideline (STG) – Guidelines for Antimicrobial Therapy and Prophylaxis, 2014. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: A total of 600 patients were recruited, of which 350 were male and 250 were female. A total of 4341 drugs were prescribed. On an average, 7 drugs per prescription were found. The generic drugs prescribed were 27% (1163). Among the drugs prescribed, 19% (850) were antibiotics, of which 36.94% (314) were cephalosporins and 81% (3491) were other drugs. Ninety-four percent (565) prescriptions were incomplete (in terms of dose, frequency, duration, or dosage form). After referring to the STG, we found that cephalosporins were prescribed empirically in 40% (126) cases, of which medicine prescriptions accounted for it the most. CONCLUSION: Cephalosporins are extensively prescribed in medicine and surgery wards of the tertiary care hospital.