The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the pattern of antibiotics used in the outpatient department of a government hospital, and also to suggest necessary modifications in prescribing practices to achieve rational therapeutic practices. A prospective observational study for antibiotic usage pattern was carried out for one month. The relevant data on drug prescription of each patient was collected from the outpatient card. The demographic data, disease data and the utilization of different classes of antimicrobial agents as well as individual drugs were analyzed using descriptive analysis. A total of 830 antibiotics were prescribed to 327 patients, out of them 64.5% were male and 35.5% were female. The mean for age was 47.70±19.01. The average number of drugs per prescription was 5.01±1.36 and number of antibiotics per prescription encountered was 2.53±1.18. Extensive polypharmacy (84.40%) was noticed among patients. Tablets contributed the highest proportion of drugs prescribed (51.98%), followed by injections (25.38%) and syrups (13.45%). The most commonly prescribed antibiotic was amoxicillin (18%). The common indications were fever (21.7%), diarrhea (21.1%), cough (14%) and cold (13.7%) and 78.5% of the prescribed antibiotics were present in the National List of Essential Medicines. Our study suggests that there is a considerable scope for improving prescribing pattern among the practitioners and minimizing the use of antibiotics in order to reduce the risk of antibiotic resistance of microbes. Formulation of an antibiotic policy for hospitals and by providing education to prescriber and hospital formulary is required.
