Abstract

Pavan Kumar Battula*, Sree Keerthi Nethi and Dr. N. Surendra Reddy

ABSTRACT

Background: Urology department is less focused or given least importance in many hospital settings and is merged with general surgery department. This is because number of cases getting admitted is very less i.e. not more than 20 in a month. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been conducted to determine the prescribing patterns in entire urology department. This study is mainly focused to obtain the information on demographics and prescribing patterns in urology department and compare the usage with National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) and Essential Drug List (EDL). Method: The study was carried out over a period of 6 months (December to May 2107) at SVRRGGH, a tertiary care teaching hospital in Tirupathi. Mean number of drugs prescribed per prescription was calculated. Prescriptions were analyzed for the antibiotic use and percentage of drug prescribed from the essential lists was enumerated. Results: Out of 50 patients admitted, males 45 (90%) were predominant compared to females 5 (10%). Totally, 278 drugs were prescribed in all prescriptions, with an average of 5.56 per admission. 48 (96%) of patients were prescribed with antibiotics, where single antibiotic is most commonly used (60%). Among all the drugs prescribed, vitamin supplements were the most common. 87.41% of drugs were prescribed from EDL, wherein only 70.41% of drugs were prescribed from NLEM. Conclusion: Parenteral use of antibiotics was high. Route conversion protocol should be properly followed and antibiotic prophylaxis should be initiated after organism isolation and if necessary, standard guidelines for empirical antibiotic use should be followed.