Higher incidence of infections leads to higher use of antimicrobials, contributing to an overall increase in healthcare costs, as well as potentially severe adverse drug reactions. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the rate and pattern of antimicrobial prescribing in inpatient department of tertiary health care hospitals. The prescriptions containing antimicrobials were collected from the inpatients excluding pregnancy and lactation. A total of 200 antimicrobial prescriptions were collected. Out of this, 56.5% were male and 43.5% were female. About 80% of physicians prescribed antimicrobials to more than half of their patients. The antimicrobials were more frequently prescribed for the patients presenting with infectious diseases (23.6%) and the highest rate was observed in patients aged between 60-80 years. Patients of high income category received antimicrobials frequently (20.7%). Cefotaxime (23.07%), ciprofloxacin (13.58%) and ampicillin (12%) were prescribed commonly in tertiary care hospitals. The antimicrobial therapy was rational to only 25% of patients. In conclusion antimicrobials were prescribed frequently as empirical therapy and also without assessing the antimicrobial susceptibility. Proper intervention should be introduced to control the emergence of antimicrobial resistance, side effects and to minimize the cost of the treatment.
