The Rate of Inappropriate Vancomycin Dosing in a Government Hospital

The present study was a cross-sectional that was carried out in a government hospital in Riyadh Province (Saudi Arabia) in 2020 to examine the rate of inappropriate dosing of vancomycin in surgical patients. All patients of all ages undergoing surgery and who received vancomycin from Surgery Department were suitable for inclusion into the research. The patients whose weight was more than 80 kg should take a dose of 1.5 g once or for a maximum of 24 h as a prophylaxis but in the present study they received 500 or 1000 so the dose of vancomycin was inappropriate and also all of them received vancomycin for 7 days so the duration of their prophylaxis was inappropriate. All of the patients in the present study used vancomycin for more than 24 h (the rate of inappropriate duration was 100%). More than 53% of them received lower vancomycin dose than the dose recommended by the guideline (inappropriate dose). It is im-portant to implement antimicrobial stewardship interventions that seemed to improve the appropriateness of using vancomycin and other antibiotics for surgical patients.