Antibiotic Usage in Intensive Care Units of Tabriz Imam Reza Hospital, 2011

Drug therapy is one of the most important factors in providing community health. In a proper selection of an antibiotic for curing an infection, the kind of infective agent and its sensitivity to the utilized drugs must be regarded. The patients whom are admitted in ICUs are 5 to 7 folds more vulnerable to infection. The studies has been done in past decades have shown various amounts of inappropriate antibiotic use. The files of 234 patients whom were admitted during 6 months in ICUs (Surgery, Neurosurgery, Neurology and Pulmonary diseases) of Imam Reza Hospital of Tabriz County studied for manner of antibiotic therapy, antibiotic changes during therapy, number of prescribed antibiotics 64% of patients were male and 36% were female. Average age of patients was 43.9±23.9 years. The most admission of patients was in Surgery ICU (69.2%). The most prescribed antibiotic was Cephalosporin family and ceftriaxone was the most utilized antibiotic. In 59.7% of patients, the antibiotics were prescribed empirically and in 35% of cases antibiotics changed during treatment. 28.1% of cases treated with monotherapy while others treated with combination therapy. In 61% of cases, the prescribed antibiotics were inappropriate with final diagnosis of patients. The majority of antibiotics were prescribed according to physician’s clinical experiment and combination therapy is used much more than monotherapy.