NATIONAL SURVEY OF ONCE-DAILY DOSING OF AMINOGLYCOSIDE ANTIBIOTICS

To evaluate the scope of once-daily dosing of intravenous aminoglycosi de antibiotics, a questionnaire was designed and mailed to a random sa mple of pharmacy directors at 500 acute care hospitals in the United S tates. The response rate was 68.4%. Nineteen percent of the respondent s reported use of once-daily dosing of aminoglycosides. Affiliation wi th a pharmacy residency program and the presence of a pharmacokinetic consultation service by the pharmacy department were associated with t his practice (p<0.05). No other statistically significant differences were found. Reported indications, contraindications, and dosing were c onsistent with those found in the literature. The profession of pharma cy, as demonstrated by pharmacy residency programs and pharmacokinetic consultation services, appears to have been instrumental in implement ing this method of dosing aminoglycosides.