Background Because of antibiotic resistance problems and their frequently inappropriate use, these drugs have often been the target of attempts to restrict their use.

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

Materials and methods The study was conducted prospectively from October to February 2012 in a tertiary hospital.

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 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 The overall rate of inappropriate use was 14%, based on criteria approved by the DTC.

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 for each drug 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 the use of restricted antibiotics as approved by the DTC, although acceptable, could be improved.

2. The participation of pharmacists in choosing the most appropriate treatment strategy and drug for the patient, could improve the use of restricted use antibiotics.

3. A system for antibiotic control between the Pharmacy and Infectious Diseases departments could improve patient care quality.

No conflict of interest.