Antimicrobial consumption at a university hospital in Turkey

Abstract

Excessive antibiotic use is a challenging topic because of the total annual expenditure and the high resistance against antimicrobials in Turkey. A point-prevalence study was performed to evaluate the daily antibiotic consumption and the cost. Data were collected by infectious diseases consultants on 30 January, 2009 and 28 January 2010. Anatomical therapeutic chemical classification and the defined daily dose (DDD) methodology were used to calculate antibiotic consumption. On a specific day in 2009, 191 of 418 patients (45.6%) received antibiotics and on the specific day in 2010, 167 of 316 patients (52.8%) received antibiotics as well. With respect to the years antimicrobials were given empirically (41.9 and 38.3%, respectively). The percentage of antibiotics used appropriately was 70.2 and 71.3%, in 2009 and 2010 respectively. The mean total antibiotic consumption was 64.5 DDD/100 bed-days in 2009 and 70.46 DDD/100 bed-days in 2010. The most frequently used substance class was cephalosporins (16.75 and 24.14 DDD/100 bed-days, respectively). The cost of all used antibacterials during the study period in 2009 was 5,713.7 (sic) for all patients (29.9 (sic) per infected patient). In the study period of 2010, the total cost was 4,240.13 (sic) (25.39 (sic) per infected patient). The cost of all used antimycotics for the combined study periods of 2009 and 2010 was 623.74 and 920.62 (sic), respectively. Hospitals should follow and evaluate their antibiotics use as DDDs so they could compare their antibiotics use with hospitals from other countries.