Prescribing pattern of antibiotics in ENT outpatient department in a tertiary care teaching hospital, Salem

Background: It is essential to evaluate the patterns of antimicrobial drugs prescribing, to know the microbial susceptibility and resistance to antimicrobial drugs. In this study, the Prescribing pattern of antibiotics was done after sensitizing about Standard treatment guidelines (STG) and using WHO core prescribing indicators. Methods: This observational study was conducted from January 2022 to June 2022. The Prescriptions of patients with ENT infections were collected. Data of age, sex, type of ENT infections and drugs were noted in case record form and evaluated. Details regarding WHO Core indicators for prescription were collected. Results: 340 prescriptions were analysed. Commonly prescribed antimicrobial drugs belonged to penicillin group (57.6%) and Macrolides (27%) and Quinolones (14.1%) and Cephalosporins (3.5%). WHO core indicators- the antimicrobial drugs prescribed were 1.0 per prescription. Most of the dosage form were oral tablets (93.3%), followed by injections (4.7%). The antimicrobials were prescribed by Generic name 83.6%. All the drugs are available from Essential drug list. The average number of drugs which were prescribed per prescription including antibiotics was 3.08. Conclusions: In this study, Standard treatment guidelines (STG) for the ENT infections were followed and the antimicrobial drugs prescribed were Penicillin followed by Macrolides, and Cephalosporins. WHO core prescribing indicators like, the prescribing in the generic name was found to be satisfactory, and the average number of drugs per prescription were as per WHO recommendation.