Seema Bansal

and 6 more

Purpose: The current study aimed to evaluate the drug utilization pattern in pediatric outpatients suffering from Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (URTI) in a tertiary care center. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in a tertiary care hospital for period of six months (December-May) on pediatric patients (age≤12years) diagnosed with URTI. Data like demographic details, diagnosis, World Health organization (WHO) prescribing indicators, different class of drugs prescribed, antibiotic treatment, and different dosage forms etc. were gathered from pediatric outpatient’s department (OPD). Results: A total of 153 prescriptions were evaluated, of these 84(54.9%) were males and rest 69(45.1%) were females. Mainly school children 89(58.17%) of age group between 6-12 years visited outpatient’s pediatric department. Fever and cough were the commonly recorded clinical symptoms in the prescription analyzed, accounting for 81% and 66.7% respectively. The average number of drugs prescribed were 2.38 per prescription; most commonly prescribed medication for the management of URTI was antipyretics 111(72.5%), antihistamines 94(61.3%) followed by antibiotics 55(35.9%). Amoxiclav {amoxicillin + clavulanic acid} (31.66%) and cefixime (30%) were the common antibacterial prescribed. Majority of medications (85%) were from WHO model list of essential medicines, and 36.43% were prescribed by their generic name. Moreover, it was observed that more than 90% of the antibiotics were prescribed without investigations for bacterial infections. The most preferred route for administration of drugs were oral (86.3%) followed by parenteral and nasal. Conclusion: Symptomatic treatment was offered in most of the prescriptions audited and antibiotics were prescribed with no definite evidence of bacterial infection. Initiation of Antimicrobial Stewardship programs and National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (NAP-AMR) guidelines in health care institutes can help prescribers to follow rational drug therapy.