Prescribing pattern of antibiotics by family physicians in primary health care

Irrational prescription of antibiotics is an ongoing global public health concern, leading to antibiotic resistance. Understanding the prescribing pattern of antibiotics is important to tackling mal-prescription and antibiotic resistance. We aimed to investigate the pattern and factors affecting outpatients' antibiotic prescribing by family physicians in Primary Health Care (PHC). A cross-sectional study was conducted in 19 PHC facilities in Alborz province. Prescribing pattern of antibiotics was evaluated among 1068 prescriptions by family physicians. Prescribing pattern of antibiotics included prescriptions containing antibiotics, the number of antibiotics per prescription, type, name of antibiotic, and mal-prescription. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Overall, 57% of the prescriptions had ≥ 1 antibiotic and the average number of antibiotics per prescription was 1.27. Amoxicillin was the commonly prescribed antibiotic. There was a significant relationship between age, sex, type of health insurance, work experience of the physician, and seasons with antibiotic prescribing (P