Abstract
Objective: to describe the profile of the most prescribed antibiotics in an Adult Intensive Care Unit of a Surgical Reference Hospital in the State of Maranhão. Methods: This is an exploratory, quantitative and documentary study. The medical records of patients admitted to the ICU sector of an outpatient surgical reference hospital from November 2016 to January 2018 were analyzed. Data were tabulated using the Microsoft Office Excel® program. Results: From November 2016 to January 2018, 220 patients admitted to the ICU with antibiotics were observed. During this period 574 antibiotics were prescribed to 220 patients. The most frequent antibiotic classes in the prescriptions analyzed were Cephalosporins with 201 (35%), followed by Carbapenems with 120 (20.9%) and Glycopeptides with 96 (16.7%). In the present study, Cephalosporins were mainly represented by Cefepime. Conclusions: It is important to know about the use of antibiotics, since they are widely used in hospitals, especially ICUs, thus directly linked to bacterial resistance that is a current health problem worldwide.