Abstract:

Background: Antibiotics are medicines which are used to prevent and treat bacterial infection. Paediatrics are more prone to infections such as septicaemia and pneumonia due to weak immune system and tend to use antibiotics to treat such infections. The problem of antimicrobial resistance keeps on increasing due to irrational use of the antibiotics and especially in developing countries.

Objectives of the study: The study aimed at determining consumption and to asses’ adherence to antimicrobial treatment guidelines among paediatric inpatients at Bugando Medical Centre, Mwanza, Tanzania.

Methodology: The study was a hospital based retrospective cross-sectional study at BMC paediatric ward. Files of Paediatrics ranging from 31 days to 17 years who were admitted from October 2019 to September 2020 were used for the study. The consumption of antibiotics was analysed in term of Days of Therapy / 1000 patient days. Assessment of adherence to treatment guidelines was done using the Standard treatment guidelines of Tanzania (2017).

Results: The total antibiotics consumption was 745.9 DoT/1000 PD. Most common antibiotics consumed were ceftriaxone, gentamicin, metronidazole, azithromycin and ampicillin/cloxacillin. Ceftriaxone had the highest value of 204.2 DoT/1000 PD. The level of adherence to treatment guidelines was 86% for the Paediatrics inpatients from October 2019 to September 2020.

Conclusion: The study that more than half of the admitted patients received antibiotics although most of the available results showed no microbiological evidence for their indication, suggesting that most of the antibiotics were empirically prescribed.