METHOD: Photocopies of the prescriptions, written out in primary health care facilities and various hospitals in 10 provinces across Turkey, were collected during pharmacy visits. Of these prescriptions, 951 scripts with single-diagnosis and also containing antibiotics were assessed by some drug use indicators.

RESULTS: Number of medicines per prescription (MPP) was 3.11 and 36.1% of the medicines were antibiotics. Average cost per prescription (CPP) was 48.86 TRL while average antibiotic CPP was 24.78 TRL. The most commonly prescribed antibiotic was amoxicillin+clavulanic acid for pharyngitis, tonsillitis and sinusitis (respectively, 30.1%, 42.3% and 27.1%); cefuroxime for bronchitis (16.5%) and levofloxacin for urinary tract infections (23.2%). In each of primary health care facilities and hospitals, comparisons of MPP, CPP, number of antibiotics per prescription and antibiotic CPP by these 5 indications showed statistically significant differences (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION: More than 3 drugs per prescription were found to be high. This value was close to those found in other studies analyzed prescriptions with multi-diagnosis, indicates physicians' tendency to poly-pharmacy. Physicians' first preference of amoxicillin+clavulanic acid for the treatment of pharyngitis, tonsillitis and sinusitis and in general; their tendency of prescribing wide-spectrum antibiotics and their reflections on the cost of prescriptions were also interesting. These findings imply that the physicians were not rational enough in the treatment of infectious diseases. Keywords : Infection, diagnosis, anti-bacterial agents, prescriptions, physicians