Assessment of Antibiotic Use in Pediatric Patients at a Tertiary care Teaching Hospital

Emergence of resistant bacterial pathogens has increased concerns about antibiotic prescribing patterns. The aim of the study was to assess the antibiotic use in pediatric patients. The study was carried out in a 500 bedded multispeciality tertiary care teaching hospital at Coimbatore for the period of eight months from May 2007 to December 2007. During the study period, all inpatients of the pediatric ward that were prescribed with antibiotics were screened. The study result showed that there were a total of 214 (52.5%) cases prescribed with antibiotics. The major disorders for which antibiotics were prescribed included acute gastroenteritis (15%), lower respiratory tract infections, (14.5) upper respiratory tract infections (13.5%) and pyrexia of unknown origin (13.5%). In only 13.6% of the cases culture and sensitivity test was done and in 9.3% of the cases, micro-organisms were isolated. The organisms isolated were Streptococcus pneumoniae (3.7%), Staphylococcus aureus (1.9%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (0.9%) and E.coli (2.8%). The most commonly prescribed antibiotic class was cephalosporins (68.2%). The most frequently prescribed antibiotic was cefuroxime (22.9%) and the commonly used antibiotic combination was cephalosporin with aminoglycoside (6.5%). The study result showed that ampicillin was the antibiotic used commonly to treat acute gastroenteritis (75%); cefuroxime for both lower respiratory tract infections (81.3%) and asthma (50%); amoxicillin/clavulanate potassium for both upper respiratory tract infections (41.4%) and pyrexia of unknown origin (34.5%); ceftriaxone/sulbactum for both acute otitis media and seizure disorder (69.2%) respectively.