Assessment of antibiotic prescription in hospitalised patients at a Chinese university hospital

Objective: To describe and understand antibiotic prescribing in hospitalised patients in a university hospital. Methods: Retrospective study using clinical data on antibiotic prescriptions in 1025 inpatient cases chosen from 2 1,000 inpatients in our hospital in 1997 by systematic sampling. Results: Antibiotics were prescribed to 77.8% of inpatients, among which 55.2% were prescribed two or more kinds of antibiotics. In 58.5% of cases, antibiotic prescriptions were given therapeutically. Only 39 specimens in 1025 cases were taken for microbiological investigation. Conclusions: Few microbiological investigations were undertaken prior to antibiotic prescribing. The main challenges, in the antibiotic prescribing are to make rational choices for antibiotic use and recognise the potential problems of abuse of antibiotics. (C) 2002 The British Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.