Background Because of antibiotic resistance problems and frequent inappropriate use of antimicrobial agents in hospitals, these drugs have often been the target of attempts to restrict their use.

Purpose To analyse the appropriateness of use of restricted-use antibiotics approved by the Drug and Therapeutics Committee (DTC).

Materials and Methods The study was conducted prospectively from October 2011 to February 2012 in our hospital.

We included all patients treated with restricted antibiotics. The data required for the clinical monitoring of patients were collected from the clinical history. The variables were: age of the patient and laboratory data, clinical service, justification of the indication and duration of treatment.

Results We included a total of 100 patients, of whom 39 were treated with ertapenem (39%), 7 with tigecycline (7%), 49 with linezolid (49%) and 5 with daptomycin (5%). The percentage of non-compliance, based on criteria for use approved by the DTC, was 14%.

In analysing the results for Services we found that 90% of prescriptions that conformed to the approved DTC indications were prescribed by General Surgery, 81.8% by Internal Medicine, 55% by Infectious Diseases, 85% by Traumatology, 71.4% by Cardiovascular Surgery, 66% by Pulmonology, 50% by Urology and 100% by other services. The suitability was 92.3% for ertapenem, 85.71% for tigecycline, 83.67% for linezolid and 60% for daptomycin. The average duration of treatment was 4.5 days for ertapenem, 12.5 days for linezolid, 11 days for tigecycline and 18 days for daptomycin.

Conclusions

1. The appropriateness of use of restricted antibiotics as approved by the DTC, although acceptable, could be improved.

2. An antibiotic control programme between the Pharmacy and Infectious Diseases could improve the quality of patient care.

No conflict of interest.