A STUDY ON CONVERSION OF INTRAVENOUS TO ORAL ANTIBIOTICS AT A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL, TUMAKURU: AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

Objective: To assess the type of conversion therapy from intravenous to oral antibiotics among hospitalized patients and the criteria preferred for conversion therapy. Materials and Methods: This observational study conducted for a period of 6 months at SHRC Tumakuru, Karnataka. A total of 127 patients from the hospital’s inpatient department were included in the study. The data were collected, analyzed, and interpreted using descriptive statistics. Results: Among 127 cases, 100 (78.74%) patients were converted and 27 (21.26%) patients were not converted, males (55.12%) are more suffered, and the age group above 60 years (33.07%) are more hospitalized. Cephalosporin (53.93 %) antibiotics were the commonly prescribed class of drug in which ceftriaxone (54.00%) was preferred. Among the conversion therapy, step-down therapy (43.00 %) was commonly used. T-test revealed that there exists no statistical difference in length of hospital stay (P value 0.5360) and duration of IV therapy (P value 0.2501) among converted and non-converted groups. 10% of patients had a conversion of antibiotics from Broad spectrum to narrow spectrum, Both Patient stability and plan for discharge were found to be 100% respectively. Conclusion: Our study concludes that male patients are more hospitalized and systemic fever is most common. Step down was the commonly preferred type of conversion to treat patients. Cephalosporin antibiotics are preferred in patients for both IV and oral routes to treat disease conditions. Clinical pharmacist needs to review the conditions of patients for early conversion of IV to oral antibiotics to prevent irrational use of antibiotics.