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Multicenter Study
. 2022 May 24;39(3):209-217.
doi: 10.4274/balkanmedj.galenos.2022.2021-11-62.

Antibiotic use and Influencing Factors Among Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: A Multicenter Point-Prevalence Study from Turkey

İrfan Şencan  1 , Yasemin Çağ  2 , Oğuz Karabay  3 , Behice Kurtaran  4 , Ertuğrul Güçlü  3 , Aziz Öğütlü  3 , Zehra Demirbaş  5 , Dilek Bulut  6 , Gülden Eser Karlıdağ  7 , Merve Sefa Sayar  6 , Ezgi Gizem Şibar  1 , Oya Özlem Eren Kutsoylu  8 , Gülnur Kul  9 , Serpil Erol  10 , Begüm Bektaş  2 , Tülay Ünver Ulusoy  1 , Semanur Kuzi  11 , Meltem Tasbakan  12 , Özge Yiğit  11 , Nurgül Ceran  10 , Ayşe Seza İnal  4 , Pınar Ergen  2 , Tansu Yamazhan  12 , Hanife Uzar  13 , Canan Ağalar  14
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Antibiotic use and Influencing Factors Among Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: A Multicenter Point-Prevalence Study from Turkey

İrfan Şencan et al. Balkan Med J. .

Abstract

Background: Broad-spectrum empirical antimicrobials are frequently prescribed for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) despite the lack of evidence for bacterial coinfection.

Aims: We aimed to cross-sectionally determine the frequency of antibiotics use, type of antibiotics prescribed, and the factors influencing antibiotics use in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 confirmed by polymerase chain reaction.

Study design: The study was a national, multicenter, retrospective, and single-day point prevalence study.

Methods: This was a national, multicenter, retrospective, and single-day point-prevalence study, conducted in the 24-h period between 00:00 and 24:00 on November 18, 2020, during the start of the second COVID-19 peak in Turkey.

Results: A total of 1500 patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of COVID-19 were included in the study. The mean age ± standard deviation of the patients was 65.0 ± 15.5, and 56.2% (n = 843) of these patients were men. Of these hospitalized patients, 11.9% (n = 178) were undergoing invasive mechanical ventilation or ECMO. It was observed that 1118 (74.5%) patients were receiving antibiotics, of which 416 (37.2%) were prescribed a combination of antibiotics. In total, 71.2% of the patients had neither a clinical diagnosis nor microbiological evidence for prescribing antibiotics. In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, hospitalization in a state hospital (p < 0.001), requiring any supplemental oxygen (p = 0.005), presence of moderate/diffuse lung involvement (p < 0.001), C-reactive protein > 10 ULT coefficient (p < 0.001), lymphocyte count < 800 (p = 0.007), and clinical diagnosis and/or confirmation by culture (p < 0.001) were found to be independent factors associated with increased antibiotic use.

Conclusion: The necessity of empirical antibiotics use in patients with COVID-19 should be reconsidered according to their clinical, imaging, and laboratory findings.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

Funding: The authors declared that this study received no financial support

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The distribution of antibiotics use
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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