A Hospital-Based Retrospective Study on the Use of Antibiotics in Surgery Deparment of a Public hospital

There are several studies about the use of antibiotics in Saudi Arabia but there is a lack of studies on the use of antibiotic for surgical patients in our region. The present study aimed to describe the use of antibiotics at Surgery Department of a public hospital in Qassim, Saudi Arabia. The study included reviewing the pharmacy electronic records to collect data about the use of antibiotics at surgery department from January 2021 to December 2021. Most of the antibiotics were dispensed by inpatient pharmacy 85.47% and most of the antibiotics were prescribed as vials dosage form (71.82%). The most prescribed antibiotics were metronidazole (15.43%), cefazolin (11.47%), ceftriaxone (9.23%), cefuroxime (8.68%), amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (8.14%), meropenem (8.00%), and piperacillin/tazobactam (7.62%). The current study showed that antibiotics were used commonly in the surgical department. The study also showed that several patients received inappropriate antibiotics and that one of the major mistakes was the prolonged prophylaxis (more than 24 h). The rate of inappropriate antibiotics prescribing among these patients needs to be decreased by improving the implementation of local prescribing guidelines and implementing stewardship program recommendations.