• Alireza Fahimzad, Zahra Eydian, Abdollah Karimi, Farideh Shiva, Shirin Sayyahfar, Manijeh Kahbazi, Aliakbar Rahbarimanesh, Iraj Sedighi, Reza Arjmand, Gholamreza Soleimani, Anahita Sanaei Dashti, Babak Abdinia, Nasser Mostafavi, Roya Nikfar, Masomeh Abedini, Mohammad Sadegh Rezaei, Ali Mohammadpour, Houman Hashemian, Hossein Hidari, Keyghobad Ghadiri, and Reza Entezari Heravi.
• Pediatric Infectious Diseases Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
• Arch Iran Med. 2016 Mar 1; 19 (3): 204-9.

BackgroundAntibiotics are among the most commonly prescribed drugs in pediatrics. Due to lack of uniformity in pediatric antimicrobial prescribing and the emergence of antibiotic resistance, appropriate drug utilization studies have been found to be crucial to evaluate whether these drugs are properly used.MethodsData were collected between January 2014 and February 2014 in 16 Iranian pediatric hospitals using a standardized method. The point prevalence survey included all inpatient beds.ResultsOf 858 children, 571 (66.6%) received one or more antimicrobials. The indications were therapeutic in 60.6%. The parenteral route was used in 92.5% of therapeutic indications. Ceftriaxone was the most prescribed antimicrobials for therapeutic indications (32.4%) and combination-therapy was the most type of therapy in pediatric intelligent care unit (PICU).ConclusionAccording to results of this study, antibiotics' prescribing in pediatrics wards of Iranian hospitals is empirical. Therefore, for quality improvement of antimicrobial use in children continuous audit process and antibiotic prescriptions require further investigation.

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