Objectives:

Appropriate antibiotic consumption defined as right diagnosis, clinically maximum impact for treatment, minimum side effect, prevention of antibiotic resistance and cost-effectiveness. Antibiotic consumption principles are same with other drugs. Bacterial resistance develops because of inappropriate consumption of antibiotics and affects not only the patients’ but also the community's health. Multi-drug resistance results in unsuccessful treatment of bacterial infections and because of these resistant species are widespread, selective resistance rates increases throughout the world. The community should be informed about the appropriate antibiotic consumption.

Methods:

Dokuz Eylul University Hospital is a 720-bed tertiary care hospital. From January 2000 to June 2003, 850 patients were hospitalised in Infectious Disease Clinic. Of them, 79 had no symptoms except fever. Patients who presented with only fever were questioned for antibiotic use, antibiotic choice, dosage, dosing interval, and duration of therapy.

Results:

Out of 79 patients, 46 were male (58.2%) and 33 were female (41.8%). Age interval was between 18 and 93. Of the patients 38 (48.1%) have taken no antibiotics, 41(51.9%) have used at least one antibiotic before hospitalisation. Of 41 patients, 22 of them had one drug, 8 had 2 drugs, and 2 had 4 drugs. Amoxicillin-clavulanate and levofloxacin were the most common antibiotics used. According to final diagnosis of patients who used antibiotics before the admission, 32 (78.1%) of them had no indication for antibiotic use while the others (9–21.9%) had bacterial infections and necessity of antibiotic usage. Of the 9 patients who had indication for antibiotic therapy, 4 patients have taken inappropriate therapy. Of 38 patients who came up to hospital without having any therapy, 15 (39.5%) had antibiotherapy indication and treated with appropriate drugs. Of 38 patients 23 (60.5%)had no diagnosis of infectious aetiology. It was also observed that most of the patients having antimicrobial therapy have not used drugs appropriately according to dosage, dosing interval and therapy period.

Conclusions:

In our study we concluded that inappropriate and unnecessarily usage of antibiotics is common in our community. In order to prevent this problem, community and healthcare workers have to be informed about antibiotics policy programmes.