The impact of suitability of empirical antibiotics use on therapeutic outcome of respiratory tract infection patients at inpatient wards of Universitas Gadjah Mada Academic Hospital.

OBJECTIVES Currently, respiratory infection is regarded as one of the most common infectious diseases. This study aims to find out the impact of appropriate use of empirical antibiotic on therapeutic outcomes of patients with respiratory infections at inpatient wards of UGM Academic Hospital. METHODS This is a cross-sectional study that uses retrospective data through patient medical records. The population was all patients who received empirical antibiotic therapy for respiratory infections at inpatient ward from July 2018 to July 2019. The sample was collected using the purposive sampling method, and the total number of samples was 192. The appropriate use of empirical antibiotic including the correct type, dosage, route, duration, and frequency was evaluated according to the Antibiotic Guidelines of UGM Academic Hospital 2018, Drug Information Handbook, Frank Shann Drug Doses, Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA)/American Thoracic Society (ATS) 2016 & 2019, Pharmacotherapy Handbook 2015, and Pharmaceutical Care for Respiratory Tract Infections 2005. The data was analyzed descriptively by using Chi-square bivariate analysis. RESULTS The result shows that 47.9% of 192 patients have received antibiotics properly according to the type, route, dose, frequency, and duration. The results of empirical antibiotic therapy have improved the repair of vital signs in 37.5% of patients. Meanwhile, the result of Chi-square bivariate analysis between the suitability of empirical antibiotic use and the improvement of therapeutic outcome is p=0.478 (p>0.05), which means that it is not statically significant. CONCLUSIONS It can be concluded that there is no correlation between the suitability of empirical antibiotics use and the improvement of the therapy outcomes. Thus, the use of empirical antibiotics based on the guidelines does not always have an impact on the improvement of the treatment outcomes of the patients with respiratory infection at inpatient wards of UGM Academic Hospital.