Patterns of topical gentamicin prescribing and the age and gender differences in its prescribing in the outpatient setting

Gentamicin is one of the aminoglycosides that is used mainly to treat Gram-negative infec-tions. It is important to know trends in outpatient gentamicin prescriptions and to know the difference in prescribing of it according to age and gender. The goal of this study is to describe the patterns of topical gentamicin prescribing and to describe the age and gender differences in its prescribing. This is a retrospec-tive study conducted in a public hospital in Alkharj, Saudi Arabia. The study includes electronic files and outpatient prescriptions review for the patients who received topical gentamicin. It can be concluded that gentamicin was prescribed equally for males and females mainly for younger patients. Most of the prescriptions were written by residents of the emergency department. It is important to prescribe and dispense gen-tamicin appropriately to increase its efficacy and to instruct patients on proper instillation technique.