Evaluation of surgical prophylactic antibiotic usage in Harran University Medical Faculty Research Hospital

The aim of this study is to evaluate the usage of antibiotic and investigate the relation between antibiotic choice and surgical site infection in Harran University Medical Faculty Research Hospital. Two hundred and forty-four patients have been included in this prospective descriptive study. Cefazolin, gentamicin, ceftriaxone and ampicillin/sulbactam have been used for prophylaxis, respectively. 44.2% of the antibiotics used for 217 patients with clean and clean-contaminated wounds who were suggested surgical prophylaxis were inappropriate; 38% of these antibiotics were unnecessary and 45% had broad spectrum. Duration of the treatments were found inappropriate for 93% of the antibiotics that were appropriately chosen. Inappropriate antibiotic usage has increased the cost by 20.20 YTL on average per patient. Eight of 111 patients who were reached by phone told that the physicians had prescribed them antibiotics for surgical site infection within last one month. There was no difference between the infection rates of the group that used appropriate antibiotics and the one which used inappropriate antibiotics. This study shows that using unnecessary and broad-spectrum antibiotics and long-term antibiotic use for surgical prophylaxis increases treatment costs and is not successful in preventing infection.