Abstract

Inappropriate use of antibiotics is known as an important risk factor in the development of antibiotic resistance which increases the morbidity and mortality. We aimed to determine the prevalence and characteristics of antibiotic use in hospitals. A prevalence survey was conducted in 11 hospitals from 1^st to 31^th October 2014. In this study, from 700 patients investigated in this study, 476 received at least one antibiotic for their treatment; the prevalence of the antibiotic use was 68%. Most of patients were female (59.1%) and aged between 16 and 30 years. The most attended service was internal medicine (34%). 19 diseases were identified, malaria exhibited the highest prevalence (21.6%) followed by surgical site infections (10.7%), urogenital infections (8.6%), and infectious symptoms (8.4%) and bronchitis (8%).  The 476 treated patients received a total of 667 antibiotic drugs (1.4 antibiotics per patient). The most prescribed antibiotic was ampicillin (35%) followed by gentamicin (13.6%), amoxicillin (13.5%), ceftriaxone (11%) and metronidazole (10.3%). The prevalence of combined therapy was 34.9% among patients who received more than one antibiotic. The most common route of administration was the intravenous (68.2%) and the most pharmaceutical form used was the powder for injection (51.1%). The prevalence of antibiotic use in Butembo hospital environment was very high which could be a risk factor for the development of resistance in case of inappropriate use of antibiotics.

Key words: Survey, prevalence, antibiotics, hospitals, Butembo, Democratic Republic of Congo.