Pharmacoeconomic Analysis and Treatment Pattern in Sepsis Patients: A Cross-sectional Prospective and Retrospective Study

Objectives: Increasing health care cost is a major concern in the developing world and has increased the economic burden for a common man. Pharmacoeconomics refers to the scientific discipline that compares the value of one pharmaceutical drug or drug therapy to another. The study objective is to describe and appraise the pattern of antibiotics prescribing based on the blood culture report and to evaluate the cost analysis in sepsis patients. Methods: A retrospective and prospective analysis was conducted at tertiary care hospitals, Warangal. The follow up was done for all patients enrolled in the study. Antibiotic-prescription pattern in both blood culture positive and negative were analyzed and compared. The data collection comprises the direct medical and non-medical cost, cost of medications prescribed during the therapy and while discharge. Results: A combined analysis of antibiotic pattern and cost of treatment was performed. The most commonly prescribed antibiotics were Piperacillin + Tazobactum, Vancomycin, Clindamycin, Tobramycin, Cefpodoxime, Meropenem and Imipenam. The cost for blood culture positive patients was 35,920 ± 15,292 rupees and blood culture negative patients was 18,082 ± 7,987 rupees. The blood culture and sensitivity testing was carried out and the common organisms isolated were Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. The overall cost of Klebsiella pneumoniae patients (Rs.35,688 ± 15,162) was higher than the Escherichia coli (Rs.24,767 ± 15,498). The dissimilarity in the cost of therapy may be due to change of treatment site. Conclusion: The present study infers that treatment pattern of antibiotics varied based on the blood culture report of an individual patient; for majority cohort piperacillin + tazobactum was the drug of choice for both blood culture positive and negative sepsis patients. On the basis of current cost analysis data, the treatment cost of blood culture positive patients is significantly high than that of blood culture negative patients.