Abstract

ANTIBIOTIC UTILIZATION PATTERN AMONG ORTHOPAEDIC PATIENTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PORTHARCOURT TEACHING HOSPITAL, NIGERIA

Alagala M. B.* and Bagbi B. M.

Abstract

Antibiotics are the commonly prescribed medication in the Orthopedics Department both prophylactically (before orthopedics surgery etc.) or to treat ongoing infections (like septic arthritis, osteomyelitis etc.). Drug utilization studies play an important role in the evaluation of the rational use of drugs in the populations. The aim of this study is to assess the drug utilization pattern of antibiotics among orthopedic patients in University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. An observational, cross-sectional retrospective review of hospital records of orthopedic unit of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital for five years spanning through January 2013 to January 2018. The sample size of this study was determined using Taro Yamane method resulting in 282 sample size. Data was collected using WHO well designed prescribing indicator which includes number of antibiotics, percentage encounter of these generics, percentage of essential drugs and diagnosis. A total of 282 prescriptions were studied; in which 48 prescriptions contained mono-antibiotic therapy (17.02%) and 234 prescriptions contained poly-antibiotics therapy (82.89%) and the beta-lactam antibiotics were most commonly prescribed (36.17%).Also there were more males (57.80%) than females (42.20%) admitted to the this units and road traffic accidents was the most common clinical situation found in the unit. Percentage of drugs prescribed from EDL is 95.2% while the percentage of antibiotics prescribed as injections was 38%.52.84% was prescribed generically and 47.16% was prescribed by brand name. Beta-Lactam antibiotics were most commonly prescribed antibiotics and poly-antibiotics prescriptions were the common pattern. The findings from this study reveals that drug utilization pattern is still suboptimal in accordance with the standard values of WHO core prescribing indicators.

Keywords: Drug utilization, Antibiotics, WHO Prescribing indicators, Orthopedics.