Irrational antibiotic therapy contributes to developing antibiotic resistance, which is a worldwide problem of significant mortality, morbidity and increased health-care costs. For prevention of antibiotic resistance, it is necessary to stop irrational antibiotic therapy through increasing awareness among physicians and to provide a base for formulating rational antibacterial guidelines. To achieve this goal, an audit was done to assess the inpatient rational usage pattern of antibiotics in a teaching hospital and, as such, study is not yet done in Bangladesh. The cross-sectional observational study was done on admitted patients of the Bangladesh Institute of Research and Rehabilitation in Diabetes, Endocrine and Metabolic Disorder (BIRDEM) General Hospital of the capital city of Bangladesh who were treated with antibiotics prescribed to the majority of undiagnosed 63.1% patients. Gastrointestinal (18.03%), gynecological and obstetrical (16.39%), urogenital (14.20%) and dermatological disease (11.20%) were the important entity of studied patients. At admission, antibiotics were empirically prescribed to 48.80% of patients. More patients were treated with single antibiotics (61%) by the oral (5.4%) and parenteral (94.6%) route. The highest resistance was reported to pipercillin (81.8%) while the lowest resistance was to amikacin (63.6%). This study report of prescribing practices in the teaching hospitals of the country are found to be unsatisfactory and antibiotic resistance patterns against common microorganisms will inform physicians to practice their rational use.
Keywords: Rational use of antibiotics, antimicrobial resistance, culture and sensitivity test
28-Feb-2025
