Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: The common LRIs in children are pneumonia and bronchiolitis. The respiratory rate is a valuable clinical sign for diagnosing acute LRI in children who are coughing and breathing rapidly. Hence; under the light of above mentioned data, the present study was undertaken for evaluating the antibiotic prescribing pattern in lower respiratory tract infection among pediatric subjects of less than 5 years of age. Materials & methods: A total of 500 subjects of less than 5 years of age and with presence of lower respiratory tract infection were enrolled. Ethical approval was obtained from institutional ethical committee and written consent was obtained from the parents/guardians of all the patients after explaining in detail the entire research protocol. The data of each patient was collected in a specially designed case record form. The inpatient case records of admitted children were analyzed for the demographic data, diagnosis, duration of hospital stay, type of drug, dosage regimen, average number of drugs per encounter, percentage of encounters with an antibiotic prescribed and group wise prescription of antibiotics. Results: Total number of drugs prescribed was 2210. Average number of drugs per prescription was 4.42 while percentage of prescription with oral antibiotics was 96.15 percent. Cephalosporin, Penicillin, Aminoglycosides and Macrolides were prescribed in 37.33 percent, 36.11 percent, 25.75 percent and 5.06 percent of the patients. Conclusion: From the above results, the authors conclude that physicians and Doctors should be more aware on more appropriate and cost effective prescribing.