Introduction: Drug utilization study (DUS) is a method for drug evaluation in which it evaluates qualitative and quantitative aspect of the drug use. The main aim of DUS is to increase rational use of the drugs in population. In neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), premature infants are treated with many drugs. Hence, DUS in NICU was planned to study prescription pattern and pharmaco-economic analysis.
Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was carried out for six months in NICU in Medical College and Hospital of Punjab after approval by Institutional Ethics Committee. Patients of both gender were enrolled after taking written informed consent and patients discharged/died within 24 hours of admission were excluded.
Results: In this study, 100 patient’s data was collected during the study period in which 67 patients were preterm, 32 were term and 1 was post term. Males were more frequently admitted than the females. Preterm babies had more duration of hospitalization (11.2 days) as compare to term and post term (7 days). Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS) was major disease prevailing in preterm 63 out of 67 but only 22 from 32 term neonates were suffering from RDS. The average number of drugs prescribed in preterm (2.7) were much higher than the term (2.01) infants Amikacin, an antibiotic was the most commonly prescribed drug among all the groups, but the costliest drug prescribed in group A and group B was Cefoperazone. Among the antibiotic combinations most affordable were amikacin + cefotaxime to all the patients.
Impact Factor
2022: 6.012
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