Drug Use Evaluation Study in a Tertiary Care Corporate Hospital with Special Reference to Use of Antibiotics in ICU Department

Patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) are seriously ill and often suffer from chronic critical illnesses. Antibiotics are the most frequently prescribed drugs among hospitalized patients especially in intensive care and surgical department. Inadequate antibiotic use can also lead to increased morbidity, mortality, length of hospital stay (LOS) and healthcare expenditures. To study the(1) determine the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in ICU Department. (2) calculate average costs of antibiotics prescribed in ICU Department. (3) The correlation of antibiotic usage as well as costs incurred with respect to age and diagnosis. A private, tertiary carehospital, prospective study.400 consecutive prescriptions on patients admitted to the ICU from 03/10/2011 to 03/04/2012, were audited. The total number of drugs and antibiotics, the class, dose route and cost of antibiotics were calculated.A total of 3332 drugsand 699 antibiotic were prescribed in the 400 patients studied, that is an average of 8.33 drugs/prescription and 1.74 antibiotics/prescription. Antibiotics were prescribed on three hundred seventy six patients (94%) at a admission.The average cost of the antibiotics was Rupees 4364.90 per patient and antibiotics expenditure accounted for 67.79% of the total drug costs. The number of drugs per prescription were much more than required which increased the risk of drug interactions, development of bacterial resistance and the hospital costs.