Evaluation of antibiotic administration for the treatment of acute pediatric diarrhea, Besat Hospital, Sanandaj, 2016

Background: Excessive and irrational use of antibiotics in the treatment of acute diarrhea has caused increased resistance to these medications. It is well defined that most cases of diarrhea in children do not require the use of antibiotics. This study was aimed to determine the status of antibiotic administration for treatment of acute diarrhea in children younger than five years. All who admitted at the pediatric ward of Besat Hospital in Sanandaj. Methods: First, the study was approved by the ethics committee of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences. The archived files of all children under 5 years with a positive history acute diarrhea who were admitted in Besat Hospital of Sanandaj during the period of 1 years, from May 2016 to May 2016 were reviewed. Demographic information such as age, gender, type of diarrhea, type of nutrition, type of the prescribed antibiotic, results of the stool and blood samples were collected and recorded in the questionnaire.In Stool samples the contained a large number of WBCs and RBCs along with high fever, Shigellosis were considered. The results were analyzed by SPSS software, version 23 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Results: A total of 1,029 cases were reviewed. 60% were boys. The highest incidence of diarrhea (75.5%) was observed at 12-24 months and the lowest rate of diarrhea was under 6 months (11.5%). The frequency of diarrhea was lower in winter than in other seasons. Only 31.49% of children received proper and rational treatment with antibiotics. The most commonly used antibiotics in hospitalized patients were ceftriaxone (94.5%) and before hospitalization was cefixime (39.5%). Based on the results of this study, it was found that 66.13% of children younger than 5 years with acute diarrhea had appropriate treatment. 31.94% of patients had inappropriate antibiotic therapy. Conclusion: In most cases of acute diarrhea in children, no evidence of bacterial or parasitic infection was found. However, a high percentage of patients received antibiotics without laboratory evidence (stool testing).