Antibiotic use and Influencing Factors Among Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: A Multicenter Point-Prevalence Study from Turkey

BACKGROUND: Broad-spectrum empirical antimicrobials are frequently prescribed for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) despite the lack of evidence for bacterial coinfection. AIMS: We aimed to cross-sectionally determine the frequency of antibiotics use, type of antibiotics prescribed, and the factors influencing antibiotics use in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 confirmed by polymerase chain reaction. STUDY DESIGN: The study was a national, multicenter, retrospective, and single-day point prevalence study. METHODS: This was a national, multicenter, retrospective, and single-day point-prevalence study, conducted in the 24-h period between 00:00 and 24:00 on November 18, 2020, during the start of the second COVID-19 peak in Turkey. RESULTS: A total of 1500 patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of COVID-19 were included in the study. The mean age ± standard deviation of the patients was 65.0 ± 15.5, and 56.2% (n = 843) of these patients were men. Of these hospitalized patients, 11.9% (n = 178) were undergoing invasive mechanical ventilation or ECMO. It was observed that 1118 (74.5%) patients were receiving antibiotics, of which 416 (37.2%) were prescribed a combination of antibiotics. In total, 71.2% of the patients had neither a clinical diagnosis nor microbiological evidence for prescribing antibiotics. In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, hospitalization in a state hospital (p < 0.001), requiring any supplemental oxygen (p = 0.005), presence of moderate/diffuse lung involvement (p < 0.001), C-reactive protein > 10 ULT coefficient (p < 0.001), lymphocyte count < 800 (p = 0.007), and clinical diagnosis and/or confirmation by culture (p < 0.001) were found to be independent factors associated with increased antibiotic use. CONCLUSION: The necessity of empirical antibiotics use in patients with COVID-19 should be reconsidered according to their clinical, imaging, and laboratory findings.