Pattern of antibiotic use in neonatal intensive care unit in tertiary care hospital in Southern India

Background: Repeated and prolonged courses of antibiotics exposure have resulted in an increase in the prevalence of hospital acquired infections and antibiotic resistant profile. The objective of this study was to quantify the use of antibiotics in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) from rural tertiary health care centre.Methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted in the NICU of tertiary care hospital located in western Maharashtra, India during the year 2011-12. A total of 237 neonates admitted to NICU from October 2011 to March 2012 were enrolled in the study according to inclusion criteria of the study. Demographic details, data on antibiotic prescriptions (name, dose, frequency, route of administration) were recorded by utilizing pre-tested structured proforma.Results: A total of 3822 prescriptions were received by the neonates and commonly prescribed antibiotics were amikacin (75.53%), cefotaxime (43.34%) and ampicillin (31.33%) respectively. It was also noted that 50% of the drugs prescribed were in compliance with the national list of essential medicines 2011. The max, 68.75% of antibiotics prescribed were in generics forms however, 12.5% were prescribed in the form of fixed dose combinations.Conclusions: The revealed that 3rd generation cephalosporins and amikacin are most commonly used antibiotics in NICU