A cross sectional study on prescription pattern of drugs in upper respiratory tract infections in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Upper respiratory tract infections are one of the leading causes of hospital visits worldwide. Judicious use of antibiotics is challenging for upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) in developing countries like India. This leads to inappropriate use of antibiotics causing many dreaded conditions like antibacterial resistance among other things. Hence rational use of drugs, mainly antibacterial, is a priority to reduce the burden of treatment failure. The objective of this study is to study the prescribing patterns and rationality of drugs prescribed in the management of URTIs.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. Data was collected from records of 300 outpatients clinically diagnosed as URTIs from SSIMS and RC Hospital, Davangere between January 2015 and June 2016. The prescribing patterns, approval status and listing of drugs in World Health Organization (WHO) essential medicines list/ National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) were analysed. The data was presented as percentages, mean and standard deviations.Results: A total of 300 cases were studied. Among these, acute pharyngitis (29%) and acute sinusitis (26%) are the most common infections. Of the 300 cases studied, 283 (94.3%) were prescribed antimicrobials. Of the total 740 medications prescribed, 393 (53.1%) were fixed-dose combinations (FDCs). A total of 724 medications (97.8%) were approved by Drugs Controller General of India and 248 (33.5%) by Food and Drug Administration. Only 5.8% of the prescribed drugs have been listed in WHO’s and NLEM. The most common class of antibacterials prescribed was Beta-lactams.Conclusions: Oral formulations were preferred over parenteral formulations and FDCs were preferred over single drug formulations. Beta-lactams comprised the major class of antibacterial prescribed.