Evaluation of Antibiotic Utilization and Antibiotic Susceptibility Patterns among Hospitalized Palestinian Patients

Abstract

Evaluation of Antibiotic Utilization and Antibiotic Susceptibility Patterns among Hospitalized Palestinian Patients BACKGROUND: Infectious diseases are one of the 10th leading causes of death in the West Bank. The control of communicable diseases plays a vital role in the achievement of “health for all”, a core principle of the World Health Organization (WHO) policy. Resistance of bacteria to the commonly available antibiotics is increasing. OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were to evaluate antibiotic utilization and the use of culture and sensitivity (C and S) test at a group of governmental hospitals. METHODOLOGY: This was an observational retrospective study that was carried out in three governmental hospitals in Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus in June 2014. Files of patients who were prescribed antibiotics during their hospital stay were reviewed. The results were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program. RESULTS: A total of 400 patients were enrolled in this study, 320 (55.0%) of them were females, the majority of them were hospitalized in internal medicine department (23.2%). Unfortunately, many of them had no clear clinical diagnosis (58.3%). Ceftriaxone was highly prescribed for 243 patients (60.8%) followed by Cefazolin in 97 (24.3%) cases. From the 400 cases that were prescribed antibiotics, only 109 cases had culture samples (27.3%) for their diseases and from these in only 62 (56.9%) cases the results of culture were available in their files. Anaerobic and aerobic microorganisms were isolated; Escherichia coli(E.coli)and Staphylococcus aureus(S.A) caused disease in 1.3 % of total sample. Patients who had the culture samples stayed in the hospitals for longer time and were prescribed more medications and antibiotics. CONCLUSION: This study shows potential overuse and misuse of antibiotics. Many patients were prescribed antibiotics for unclear reasons or confirmed diagnosis of infections. Use of antibiotics was not guided by Cand S test in many patients as it was ordered for less than one third of the patients who were prescribed antibiotics.