Antibiotics are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs today. Rational use of antibiotics is therefore extremely important as their injudicious use can adversely affect the patient. Drug Utilization Evaluation (DUE) is a system of ongoing systematic criteria based evaluation of drug that will help to ensure that medicines are used appropriately. It is drug/disease specific and can be structured so that it will assess the actual process of prescribing, dispensing, or administration of drug. The retrospective study was conducted At Pk Das Institute of Medical Sciences, Palakkad, Kerala for a duration of 6 months (February 2017 - January 2018). A source of data includes Patient case sheets &medication charts, nursing charts, culture & sensitivity reports. The inclusion criterion includes Patients aged between 18- 80 year, prescribed with oral and parenteral antibiotics. . On analyzing the gender, male gender (n= 111, 55.5%) were higher in numbers as compared to female counterparts (n=89, 44.5%). In our study the majority of the patients prescribed with antibiotics were with the clinical assessment of COPD (n=39, 19.5%), UTI (n=37, 18.5%) and LRTI (n=28, 14%), Bronchial asthma (n=19, 9.5%) respectively. On analyzing the data based on antibiotic sensitivity test, antibiotic test were performed and followed in (n=64,32%)prescriptions and in (n=47,23.5%)prescriptions were test is not followed respectively. In (n=89,44.5%) prescriptions, antibiotic sensitivity test is not performed. On analysis of antibiotics prescribed, the most commonly prescribed antibiotics were cephalosporins, of these ceftriaxone was highly prescribed of all (n=95). The high percentage of antibiotic prescriptions may indicate a high probability of irrational use. This study also point out irrational use of antibiotics are more leading to resistance, misuse and serious problems. So certain strategies should be put forward to strengthen rational use of antibiotics.
Keywords: Antibiotics, Antibiotic Susceptibility Test, Irrational use, Resistance
