Survey of antibiotic use at a tertiary care hospital in Mexico

To analyze antibiotic use in a tertiary care hospital in Mexico.

We conducted two point prevalence surveys based on the World Health Organization methodology in a tertiary care hospital in Guadalajara, Mexico. We surveyed the clinical records of patients with active antibiotic prescriptions (APs) in medical (MED), surgical (SUR), medical-surgical (MIX) wards, and intensive care units (ICUs). Descriptive statistics were estimated using Stata software.

We analyzed 929 APs from 403 patients. The prevalence of antibiotic use in the hospital was 47.5%. Antibiotics were more used in ICUs (59.5%) and MIX wards (54.8%). The main reasons for antibiotic use were community-acquired infections (45.2%), and preoperative prophylaxis (23.1%), mostly multidose and prolonged (89.3%). APs were mainly empirical (92.4%), administered parenterally (95.9%) and lacked subsequent review (30.3%). Bacterial culture testing was limited (30.5%). The most used antibiotics were ceftriaxone (18.9%), clindamycin (8.5%), and meropenem (8.2%). Most APs corresponded to Access (56.4%) and Watch antibiotics (35.6%) (AWaRe, WHO).

We revealed frequent prescribing patterns of broad-spectrum antibiotics and differences in their use possibly related to patients' clinical profiles.