Antibiotic susceptibility profile of Pseudomonas species isolated from clinical specimens to access, watch and reserve drugs across various hospital settings at a tertiary care hospital of central India

Over the last decade, hospital-acquired infections, particularly in the critical care setting, have become more common, with Gram-negative bacterial infections having the highest prevalence. This study aims to determine the prevalence and antibiotic susceptibility pattern of to WHO's, aware class of antibiotics, which are commonly prescribed across various ICU's, medical and surgical wards of our tertiary care teaching hospital. This prospective study conducted from January 2021 to June 2022 at a tertiary care centre of central India identified from clinical samples using standard procedures and antimicrobial susceptibility testing performed as per Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines (M100; 32 Edition). A total of 1490 non duplicate isolates were grown from 21,019 culture positive clinical samples, of which 1247 were Out of these 1247 384 were MDR (30.7%). were most commonly isolated from the pus samples (85%). ICU isolates were significantly more resistant to antibiotics than those from other units. strains from ICUs showed the highest rates of resistance to ceftazidime (93.9%). Reserve drug colistin showed good susceptibility (98.2%). All the 18 colistin resistant strains were found to be negative for plasmid mediated -1,2,3 genes. The study shall help to generate and disseminate the data so that proper antibiotic policy can be made for judicious use of Access, Watch and Reserve antibiotics and antibiotic de-escalation plan can be put forth.