Objective: To describe trends in inpatient antimicrobial consumption at Children's Hospital 2 during 2023–2025.
Methods: This retrospective descriptive study used data extracted from the hospital management system of Children's Hospital 2 from January 2023 to December 2025. The analyzed indicators included antimicrobial expenditure, defined daily doses (DDD), and DDD per 100 patient-days.
Results: Total inpatient antimicrobial expenditure gradually decreased during 2023-2025 (34.46 billion VND, 32.65 billion VND, and 30.82 billion VND in 2023, 2024, and 2025, respectively), while the proportion of antimicrobial expenditure in total drug expenditure declined from 23.0% to 18.5%. Total hospital-wide antimicrobial consumption decreased from 65.02 DDD/100 patient-days in 2023 to 53.51 DDD/100 patient-days in 2025. Priority antimicrobials requiring strict management (Group 1) accounted for approximately 18–19% of DDD-based total consumption but represented more than 74% of total antimicrobial expenditure. The DDD-based consumption structure showed a decreasing proportion of injectable agents (from 75.4% to 67.9%) and an increasing proportion of oral agents (from 24.6% to 32.1%). By chemical subgroup, the consumption of Carbapenems, Polymyxins, and Quinolones decreased from 5.85, 0.78, and 3.90 to 4.85, 0.66, and 2.82 DDD/100 patient-days, respectively. In contrast, Oxazolidinones, Phosphonic acid derivatives, and newer BL-BLI agents such as ceftazidime-avibactam increased from 0.27, 0.02, and 0.01 to 0.37, 0.11, and 0.06 DDD/100 patient-days, respectively.
Conclusion: From 2023 to 2025, antimicrobial expenditure and DDD-based inpatient antimicrobial consumption showed a downward trend. Group 1 antimicrobials accounted for a high proportion of expenditure. Ongoing efforts should focus on strengthening antimicrobial stewardship and developing tools for monitoring antimicrobial utilisation indicators.