Abstract :
Background: To study cost-effective and cost-benefit analysis of antibiotic prescription in patients who had enteric fever
and was given intravenous ceftriaxone. Methods: This was a prospective observational study conducted in a tertiary care
hospital. 200 patients who have been diagnosed with enteric fever and were prescribed ceftriaxone were studied and their
prescriptions were analyzed. 5 brands of most commonly prescribed ceftriaxone injections were chosen to analyse costeffective
and cost-benefit analysis. Our study showed that there was a major difference of prizes between generic and 5
most commonly prescribed brands of the same drug. Use of branded drugs was associated with increase cost of treatment
and in many cases was responsible for failure to take complete treatment as prescribed by treating physician. Results:
This Study was conducted on 100 patients, 68 males and 32 females, diagnosed with enteric fever. Out of these patients
Maximum number of patients were seen between age group of 30-40 years (34) and minimum patients belonged to age
group of more than 60 years (8). Analysis of prescriptions revealed that 80 patients were prescribed Branded drugs and
20% were prescribed generic drugs. Out of these 80 patients who were prescribed branded drugs most common 5 brands
were studied. The analysis of the cost of single dose of inj ceftriaxone revealed that branded drugs were 3.12 % to 200.84
% more in comparison with generic IV ceftriaxone. Analysis of cost of 1 day of treatment with IV ceftriaxone 1gm revealed
similar figures. Total cost of treatment was Rs 595 for generic drug and 1790 for branded drug with maximum MRP. The
Analysis of patients who discountinued treatment before completion revealed that most of them belonged to Brand E (30%)
and minimum number of patients belonged to Generic group (5%.Conclusion: The cost of most commonly prescribed
branded drugs was significantly higher (3%-200%) than generic drug and prescribing branded drugs was associated with
failure to take complete treatment as prescribed by treating physician.
Keyword :
Branded, Generic, enteric fever, ceftriaxone, cost-effective analysis.