Prescribing Pattern of Antimicrobials for Respiratory Tract Infections among Paediatric population in a Multi- Speciality Teaching Hospital

Respiratory Tract Infection (RTI) is one of the leading causes of paediatric mortality. Majority of RTIs are viral in origin. Bacterial pathogens associated with upper and lower respiratory tract infections are Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenza and Moraxella catarrhalis. Antibiotics are considered as the key drugs of choice for the treatment of many infections and they are most commonly prescribed drugs in paediatric department of RTI. Antibiotic regimen should be selected based on presumed causative pathogen. In view of the higher burden of RTI among paediatrics in this area, a study is taken up to analyse the prescribing pattern of antibiotics in RTI. The prospective study was conducted for a period of 6 months. Case records of 156 patients were selected based on the study criteria. A suitably designed data collection form was used to collect the required data. Statistical analysis was done using Microsoft Excel.In this study, there was a slight female predominance (50.64%) and the most prevalent age group was 0 - 3 years (44.88%). LRTI (55.77%) was extensively distributed among the study population in which WALRTI constituted the highest (25.65%). Penicillin (33.15%) class of antibiotics were the most preferred followed by cephalosporin (30.97%). Amoxicillin-clavulanate (26.02%) and Ceftriaxone (21%) were the highly prescribed antibiotics among penicillin and cephalosporins respectively. Majority of patients received antibiotics intravenously. Monotherapy was encouraged in 66.64% of patients. It is essential to improve the utilisation of drugs and therefore analysis of prescription pattern should be carried out frequently to enhance the quality of prescriptions. The study results aim at focusing the importance of strategies that have to be implemented to rationalise the use of medications in paediatrics. Drug utilization studies are vital to promote optimal use of antimicrobials to ensure the best clinical outcome and to address the concern of antimicrobial resistance.