Abstract:

Background: Antibiotics are among most frequently prescribed drugs for paediatric patients. They are frequently prescribed as empirical therapy rather than definitive therapy. Because of rising healthcare costs, emergence of antibiotic resistance, monitoring and control of antibiotic utilization are of growing concern.

Methodology: A facility based retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at Magu district hospital for determining antibiotic utilization among inpatient paediatric s from October 2019 to September 2020 with the use of medical files. Data was collected with the use of modified strengthened pharmaceutical system containing antibiotic utilization and patient demographic. Convenience sampling was used, data analysed by using SPSS.

Results: A total of 1028 medical files were enrolled the average mean age was 4.60 ± 4.59 years, common medical conditions that were prescribed with antibiotics are malaria 149(22.1%), followed by pneumonia 96(14.3%) and anaemia 56(8.3%). Overall antibiotic consumption was 760 DOT/1000PD with gentamicin accounting to 211.9 DOT/1000PD (27.9%) as common utilized antibiotic. Paediatrics with >5 years were given dosage forms appropriately while those with ≥5 years 387 (75%) were given dosage form appropriately, 62(9.2%) received both inappropriate and appropriate dosage forms and 67 (13%) received inappropriate dosage forms.

Conclusion: There was high antibiotic consumption among Paediatrics compared to other studies and some medical conditions were prescribed with antibiotics but they do not require antibiotic. Some of Paediatrics were prescribed with inappropriate dosage form.