Assessment of Defined Daily Dose for Meropenem Injection at Colonial War Memorial Hospital from January 2015 to December 2016

Introduction: Defined Daily Dose is a standard procedure that health economies and institutions use in order to estimate the entire amount of antibiotic used. If the entire usage is divided by the usage in one day of a particular antibiotic, it clearly gives an idea as to how much of the drug has been consumed. Therefore, this research aims to calculate the DDD for Meropenem injection for adults and pediatric patient groups at CWM hospital for the years 2015 and 2016 and also to compare the differences between the WHO Daily Defined dose and the calculate PDD r Meropenem injection.
Method: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted, which included all the cases from the period January 2015 to December 2016, which received Meropenem Injection. A planned data collection tool was used to obtain details such patient code, age, weight, gender that also included drug details such as an indication of use, the prescribed dose, duration and frequency of treatment. Convenience sampling was used for collection of data.
Results: 638 cases were prescribed Meropenem injection between January 2015 to December 2016 of which 438 were from 2015. Pediatric cases accounted for the most cases, particularly neonates (0-28 days) which accounted for 34% of the total cases. The most common dosing frequency was tds (q8h) in 61.5% of the cases, and most commonly prescribed for duration of less than 7 days. It was also commonly prescribed for sepsis, urinary tract infections an outbreak. he calculated adult PDD for meropenem injection at CWMH was 6.54g, while the adult and pediatrics PDD's were 5.68g and 9.55g respectively.
Discussion: Higher usage of Meropenem injection in 2015 when compared to 2016
as shown 2015 and was utilized more commonly among pediatrics patients.
Meropenem injection was commonly prescribed in Neonates (0-28 days), and this can be attributed to the higher number of requests arising from the NICU outbreaks. Sepsis, outbreaks, Urinary tract infections were some of the indications for which Meropenem injection was frequently prescribed. The calculated t eåotal PDD for meropenem injection usage at CWMH during the study period to be 6.54g and the