Investigation on the States of Antibiotics Prescription in Hospitals in Qom, Iran, during 2019

Background and Objectives: Irrational use of antibiotics can lead to increased drug resistance. The Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical/ Defined Daily Dose (ATC/DDD) system is a tool to monitor medication use, evaluate the improvements in drug consumption quality, and make comparisons between international and other levels in this regard. This study aimed to determine the status of antibiotic prescription in hospitals in Qom, Iran.   Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 1200 medical records of the patients using a multi-stage sampling method in 2019. The data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire to seek demographic information and antibiotics used by patients, as well as ATC/DDD based on the DDD/100 bed-days index. Furthermore, the data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 20) through descriptive statistics and analysis of variance.   Results: The results showed no significant relationship between the number of prescribed antibiotics and the hospitalization season (P>0.05). The majority of the antibiotics were injectable (93.5%) prescribed by surgical specialists (50.70%). Gynecology and Children's hospitals obtained the highest (18.4%) and the least (12.4%) level of antibiotic prescription, respectively. The daily recommended doses for every 100 days of bed rest for the most common antibiotics were Amikacin (21.81), Ceftriaxone (33. 62), Ampicillin (19. 34), Meropenem (6.10), and Vancomycin (11.28).   Conclusion: The results show that Amikacin, Ceftriaxone, Ampicillin, Meropenem, and Vancomycin were the most common antibiotics used in the present study accounting for more than 70% of the total antibiotics administered. The DDD/100 bed-days of the most commonly used antibiotics were higher than those reported by the World Health Organization.