A Study of Prescription Pattern of Antibiotics in Paediatric In-Patients at a tertiary care hospital in central India

Introduction: Rational antibiotic prescription is very important to prevent antimicrobial resistance.Widespread use of antimicrobials has facilitated the development of resistance.Aim: The study was to assess the use of antimicrobials in tertiary care hospital in central India Material and methods: A retrospective analysis of 200 case sheets of paediatric inpatients was done using medical records.Data was analysed for average number of drugs prescribed, antimicrobials prescribed by generic name or brand name, percentage of antibiotics among the prescribed drugs etc Statistical tests: Data was expressed as number, percentage and Mean±SD.Results: In our study, we found out that mean age of paediatric patients was 5.6 yrs.Our results showed tendency of polypharmacy with maximum number of prescriptions were having 3 drugs (39%). 2 antibiotics were prescribed to 79% of the patients.Cefexime was most commonly prescribed antibiotic.48.92% drugs were prescribed in generic name.96% of antibiotics were prescribed by Parenteral route.Conclusion: Antibiotic resistance is an emerging problem worldwide which can be controlled by rational prescription, restricting the number of antimicrobial prescription and appropriate selection of the drug.