Evaluation of antiinfective prescription characteristics in Turkey

In this study, the characteristics of antiinfective prescriptions were evaluated using IMS Health Medical Index data obtained from a sample estimating an outpatient prescription for Turkey by projection method. For this purpose, antiinfectives were investigated by the frequency of prescribing, distribution of use in age groups and specialties, adherence to treatment guidelines, and potential drug interactions. Prescribed antiinfectives were evaluated regarding the treatment guidelines on the same period and Medscape database was used for potential drug interactions. In the analysis of prescriptions corresponding to the number of 528,131,851 by projection method, it has been found that there were differences in the distribution of adherence to treatment guidelines, the frequency and context of anti-infective use according to age groups and specialties. Among the antiinfectives, the most prescribed ones were antibiotics and were mostly used in family medicine, pediatrics, otorhinolaryngology and internal medicine, respectively. The prominent findings according to specialties were overprescribing of cephalosporins vs penicillins in pediatrics, frequent use of ciprofloxacin versus other fluoroquinolones in pulmonology, and prescription of fluoroquinolones and cephalosporins in orthopedics. Anti-infectives were often co-prescribed with other drugs. Across all prescriptions, 13,780,197 potential drug interactions were recorded. Among these potential interactions, corresponding to 2.6% of prescriptions, major and moderate interactions seemed to be low and manageable. This study for the first time investigated anti-infective prescribing characteristics in Turkey on the basis of big data. Obtained findings indicate that antiinfective prescriptions were compatible with rational drug use in general, however there is still a need to conduct further research in certain subgroups based on this research.