• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.87-94
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• 2017

Purpose: The inappropriate prescription of antibiotics in children with upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) is common. This study evaluated the factors that influence antibiotics use in hospitalized children with viral URTI confirmed by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR) assay. Methods: The medical records of admitted patients who performed RT-PCR assay for respiratory virus pathogens from January 2013 to November 2014 were examined. The demographic and clinical features were compared between patients who were administered antibiotics at admission and those who were not. We also investigated differences between children who continued antibiotics and those who stopped antibiotics after a viral pathogen was identified. Results: In the total 393 inpatients, the median age was 23 months (interquartile range, 13 to 41.3 months). Antimicrobial agents were prescribed in 79 patients (20.1%) at admission. Patients with acute otitis media (AOM) had higher rates of antibiotics prescription than those without AOM (48.1% vs. 2.2%, P<0.001), with an adjusted odds ratio of 91.1 (95% confidence interval, 30.5 to 271.7). Level of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and the proportion of acute rhinosinusitis were also significantly associated with antibiotics use (P<0.001). Among the 44 patients with viruses identified using the RT-PCR method during hospitalization, antibiotic use was continued in 28 patients (63.6%). AOM was statistically associated with continued antibiotic use in the patients (P=0.002). Conclusions: Although the respiratory virus responsible for URTI etiology is identified, clinicians might not discontinue antibiotics if AOM is accompanying. Therefore, careful diagnosis and management of AOM could be a strategy to reduce unjustified antibiotic prescriptions for children with URTI.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.421-429
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• 2009

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify knowledge and attitudes on antibiotic use held by adolescents (middle and high school students) in Korea. Methods: Data were collected from a convenience sample of 651 students residing in 5 major cities in Korea. The questionnaire was developed after an extensive literature review and professional advisory meetings. Descriptive statistics, t-test, chi square test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation coefficients with the SPSS program were used to analyze the data. Results: Respondents correctly answered 6.23 antibiotic-related questions out of 15 questions. Two thirds of the respondents knew viruses caused most colds and coughs, but 80% did not know that antibiotics do not work against viruses. High school students' attitudes towards antibiotics were somewhat negative. More middle school students than high school students asked doctors for antibiotics for a cold. High school students did not check if antibiotics were included in their prescription for a cold. There was no significant correlation between knowledge and attitudes towards antibiotic use. Conclusion: Education programs on appropriate antibiotic use need to be developed for these students. Continual reinforcement and repetition of the contents are required to change attitudes.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.399-404
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• 2005

To investigate drug interaction, 23,536 prescriptions published for 1 year were investigated with 'Drug Inter­action Fact 2002'. Dispensing records and a database file written in a local general hospital in South Korea were used as a sample. The number of total cases of drug interaction was 3,238 ($13.76\%$) out of 23,536 prescriptions. The incidence of drug interaction in each prescription the children, the adults, and the elderly were $1.33\%,\;10.97\%,\;25.50\%$, respectively. The incidences of drug interaction per each prescription were $22.03\%,\;20.52\%,\;0.51\%,\;and\;0.36\%$ in neurosurgery, internal med­icine, pediatrics, and orthopedics, respectively. In neurosurgery and internal medicine, risk-high drugs of drug interaction such as antihypertensive drugs, diuretics, and cimetidine were used very often in elderly. In this paper, several suggestions to reduce drug interaction were postulated with regard to the usage of analgesics, non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs, and antibiotics.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.398-411
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• 2001

The separation system of pharmacy and clinic has begun on the purpose of preventing drug misuse and abuse since July 1st of 2000. The system revealed some conflicts between doctors. pharmacists and consumers. Consequently pharmaceutical law and related policies undergone some change. Now in an early period of the implementation of the system, the necessity to examine relevance of those policies and law enforcement to medical doctors' prescriptions pattern evolves. This study tries to verify the pattern through a field study. For the purpose, 930 prescriptions collected in May of 2001, from a pharmacy located in Gangnam-gu in Seoul, were analysed. The prescriptions were issued from several clinics: 459 prescriptions from otorhinolaryngological clinic(ENT), 177 from internal medicine clinic(IM), 130 from ophthalmic clinic(Opt), 52 from obstetric and gynecologic clinic(OB & GY), and 112 from miscellaneous clinics. ENT, IM, Opt. OB & GY are situated in a clinic building of 40m distance. The general findings are following: 1) $88.8\%$ of the total patients came from 5clinics in nearby single clinic building. 2) Average prescribing days were 6.2 days and the average number of used drugs were 4.0 drugs, i.e. 2-4 times of WHO criteria 1-2 drugs. 3) Use of antibiotics in the oral administration drugs rated $71.8\%(WHO: \;22.7\%)$ 4) Use of injection rated $31.3\%(WHO:\;17.2\%)$ 5) $96.2\%$ of the patients use multiple antibiotics in the injection and oral administration together. 6) The patients had multiple disease : ENT patients 1.7 disease and 1M patients has 2.7 disease in average and several regular prescribing types evolved particularly in the ENT prescription. With this result we found that drugs. especially antibiotics are still abused a lot, and there were significant differences in the number of used drugs and prescrbing days between the clinics. It implies somes differences of the preparation work and time for pharmacists. And preparation can be done in advance by pharmacists' own efforts through noticing regular prescribing types. The study suggests the followings: 1) Patient counseling should be done to minimize the incidence of adverse events. 2) The enforcement of the standardized differential preparation price system should be reconsidered. 3) Preparation of typical regularly appeared prescription in advance. which is regarded as 'a prearranged work between doctors and pharmacists' and has been prohibited should be reconsidered. 4) Drug utilization review program should be established to prevent drugs abuse. especially antibiotics abuse.

• Archives of Craniofacial Surgery
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.254-259
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• 2021

Background: Prophylactic antibiotics are commonly used in craniofacial surgeries. Despite the low risk of surgical site infection after nasal surgery, a lack of consensus regarding the use of antibiotic prophylaxis in the closed reduction of nasal bone fractures has led to inappropriate prescribing patterns. Through this study, we aimed to investigate the status of prophylactic antibiotic use in closed reductions of nasal bone fractures in Korea. Methods: This retrospective cohort study was conducted using data from the National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort of Korea from 2005 to 2015. We analyzed the medical records of patients who underwent closed reduction of nasal bone fractures. The sex, age, region of residence, comorbidities, and socioeconomic variables of the patients were collected from the database. Factors that affect the prescription of perioperative antibiotics were evaluated using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results: A total of 3,678 patients (mean±standard deviation of age, 28.7±14.9 years; 2,850 men [77.5%]; 828 women [22.5%]) were included in this study. The rate of antibiotic prescription during the perioperative period was 51.4%. Approximately 68.8% of prescriptions were written for patients who had received general anesthesia. The odds of perioperative prophylactic antibiotic use were significantly higher in patients who received general anesthesia than who received local anesthesia (odds ratio, 1.59). No difference was found in terms of patient age and physician specialty. Second-generation cephalosporins were the most commonly prescribed antibiotic (45.3%), followed by third- and first-generation cephalosporins (20.3% and 18.8%, respectively). In contrast, lincomycin derivatives and aminoglycosides were not prescribed. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that there was a wide variety of perioperative antibiotic prescription patterns used in nasal bone surgeries. Evidence-based guidance regarding the prescribing of antimicrobial agents for the closed reduction of nasal bone fractures should be considered in future research.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.8-21
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• 2023

Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) drugs are often co-prescribed with other medications to prevent GI complications. This study aimed to evaluate the prescribing pattern of potentially unnecessary GI drugs in patients with acute cystitis who were prescribed oral antibiotics and investigate the influencing factors affecting this. Methods: We identified female patients ≥20 years with acute cystitis who visited the outpatient clinic and were prescribed oral antibiotics between July and December by analyzing Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA)-National Patients Sample (NPS)-2019 data. Patients with no prior history of GI disorders within 180 days prior to acute cystitis, excluding or including the date of diagnosis of acute cystitis, were selected (Group A and B). Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the factors affecting the prescription of potentially unnecessary GI drugs. Results: A total of 1,544 in Group A and 552 patients in Group B were included for the final analysis. Potentially unnecessary GI drugs were prescribed in 1,176 patients in Group A (76.2%) and 231 patients in Group B (41.8%). Third generation cephalosporines and sulfonamides showed the lower odds ratio for prescribing GI drugs than penicillins. Prescribers from Urology clinics showed more than twice odds ratio for the prescription of GI drugs compared to prescribers from internal medicine clinics. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that potentially unnecessary GI drug prescriptions for patients with acute cystitis were high in South Korea. The positive risk factors affecting the prescription of unnecessary GIs were not patient-related factor but healthcare facility and prescriber-related factors.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.117-123
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• 2018

Background: Prostatitis, one of the most common diseases of the prostate, is a complex disease with various clinical features. This study aims to analyze the utilization and prescribing patterns of antibiotics in Korean patients with prostatitis between 2008 and 2015. Methods: We used the National Health Insurance Database complied from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA). The outcomes included the number of claims, number of patients, medical cost, and length of stay for each year. In addition, the prescribing patterns of antibiotics, including fluoroquinolone, and low-dose use of ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin were investigated. Results: The total number of patients and medical cost increased by 9.5% and 51.7% from 2008 to 2015, respectively. Most prostatitis patients were classified as chronic prostatitis patients. The prescribing proportion of antibiotics for chronic prostatitis outpatients decreased from 71.0% to 66.9% from 2008 to 2015, and fluoroquinolone accounted for more than half of the total antibiotics. Over 80% of prescription of levofloxacin and ciprofloxacin was identified to be for low-dose use. Conclusion: Most of the patients with prostatitis experienced pain relief and condition improvement after antibiotic treatment; however, chronic prostatitis and chronic pelvic pain syndrome recur easily. Therefore, active disease management and further studies are needed to enhance our understanding of effective treatment for prostatitis.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.244-251
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• 2003

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airway and the prevalence rate is increasing. As the burden of asthma to the society is significant due to the increasing hospital admissions and emergency visits, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI, USA) and World Health Organization (WHO) have developed comprehensive guidelines to help clinicians and patients make appropriate decisions about asthma care. The aim of study was to analyze the pattern of asthma prescriptions based on the national asthma guidelines for the patients visiting primary health care providers. Prescription data for asthma were obtained from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database of January 2002. Ten percent of the primary health care providers were sampled based on their specialty areas, and 20％ of the claim cases were randomly chosen. Study results showed that prescription rate for oral beta-2 agonists was 44.3％, and that for oral theophylline was 46.9％. Oral steroids were prescribed for the 28.2％ of the claims. Utilization of inhalers was low for both bronchodilators (20.3％, beta-2 agonists inhalers), and steroids (8.4％ steroids inhalers). Bronchodilators were more preferred to the longterm anti-inflammatory controllers among the primary health care providers. Prescription rate for antibiotics was 46.0％ for asthmatic patients. Also gastrointestinal drugs were prescribed for 59.0％, antitussives 65.3％, antihistamines 25.3％ and analgesics 29.4％, respectively. This study presented that the prescribing pattern of the primary health care providers for the asthma was quite different from the national and international guidelines. More efforts need to be made to reduce the gap between the present pattern of asthma prescription and the guidelines.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.886-893
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• 2012

Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a cephalosporin and beta-lactam antibiotic-resistant strain. In most cases, MRSA is spread from infected patients and infection rates are growing increasingly. Furthermore, increased resistance to antibiotics is causing serious problems in the world. Staphylococcus aureus is responsible for both nosocomial and community-based infections that range from relatively minor skin and soft tissue infections to life-threatening systemic infections. Therefore, there is a need to develop alternative antimicrobial drugs for the treatment of infectious diseases. In this study, we investigated antimicrobial activity of oriental medicine prescription against MRSA. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of Sohamhyung-tang water extract against S. aureus strains ranged from 500 to 2,000 ${\mu}g/mL$, so we have it confirmed that a strong antibacterial effect. Also, the combinations of Sohamhyung-tang water extract and conventional antibiotics exhibited improved inhibition of MRSA with synergy effect. We suggest that Sohamhyung-tang water extract against MRSA have antibacterial activity, it has potential as alternatives to antibiotic agent. We suggest that the Sohamhyung-tang water extract lead the treatment of bacterial infection to solve the resistance and remaining side-effect problems that are the major weak points of traditional antibiotics.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.194-204
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• 2001

Purpose: In general, Acute Pyelonephritis is effectively treated with the use of antibiotics. However, some antibiotics are reported to cause side effects, and the abuse of antibiotics results in the increase of the disease's tolerance to antibiotics. Recently, I have effectively treated five cases of Acute Pyelonephritis by using only Constitution - Acupuncture and Herb, and therefore I would like to report about these cases. Methods: I diagnosed Acute Pyelonephritis of these five patients by confirming symptoms and employing a urine analysis with reagent strip(Multi $stix{\circledR}$). I used Kuon's method of constitutional diagnosis for the purpose of the diagnosis of the constitutional 8 morbidities. I relied on Sungjeong(性情) and Chehyungkisang(體刑氣像) in diagnosing Sasang Constitutions(四象人). I performed acupuncture on the left and right sides, depending on 8 constitutions, by employing Chang - temperament Inflammation Formula(臟系炎症方) that is used for the treatment of all kinds of chang-temperament inflammation diseases, as well as Bactericidal Formula(殺菌方) that is used for the treatment of all kinds of bacterially caused diseases. I prescribed by consulting the appearance of disease and general symptoms of each case with Dongyi Soose Bowon(東醫壽世保元)'s prescription symptoms. Result: Two of them showing severe symptoms were hospitalized, while three others took OPD treatment. The patient who was PANCREOTONIA and Soyangin improved through hospitalization for three days, another patient who was PULMOTONIA and Taeyangin with severe symptoms, improved through hospitalization for seven days, and completely recovered through OPD treatment later. The three others took only OPD treatment, and improved within 5-7 days. Conclusion: I confirmed that each of 8-constituions and Sasang Constitutions were all treated effectively without antibiotics.