OBJECTIVES : The main objective of the study was to understand the antibiotic susceptibility patterns in various Intensive Care Units (ICUs) to ascertain the suitable empirical antibiotic therapy for the critically ill patients.

METHODS : This was a cross-sectional study that was conducted for a period of 12 months by collecting culture reports of patients from various intensive care units such as Neuro ICU, Respiratory ICU (RICU), Surgical ICU (SICU). Bacterial identification was done by VITEK COMPACT 2 automated system. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was done with the help of Automated Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) methods according to the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CSLI) guidelines. The patient demographics, types of specimens collected, culture results, and antibiotic resistance pattern were collected manually by using a data extraction form.

RESULTS : A total of 731 samples were analysed during this period, wherein 785 bacteria were isolated. The commonly received culture samples was from Endotracheal tube (45.5%), followed by urine (19.5%), pus (18.5%), blood (13.5%), sputum (2.3%) and cerebral-spinal fluid (0.7%). Overall, the most common isolate from Endotracheal tube was found as Acinetobacter species (22.9%), from urine it was predominantly Enterococcus species (4.4%) followed by E. coli (3.4%), from pus it was Klebsiella pneumoniae (2.4%) followed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa(2.3%) and from blood it was Klebsiella pneumoniae (2.8%) followed by Acinetobacter species (2.4%).Most of the bacteria exhibited high resistance to Ciprofloxacin (85%) ,Ceftriaxone (80%) and Amoxicillin+ clavulanic acid (74.8%). The lowest bacterial resistance rates were observed with Amikacin (87%), Imipenem (78%) and Gentamicin (68%).

CONCLUSIONS :

There was a high percentage of bacterial resistance to the 1^st line antibiotics that were commonly used as empirical therapy. Periodic Surveillance

to monitor changes in bacteria, and antibiotic susceptibility patterns in hospitals is crucial in order to prescribe appropriate antibiotics.