Abstract

Introduction: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are the second leading cause of infection in communities. Determination of antibiotic resistance in common pathogenic bacteria is important to choose an effective treatment against a particular microbe. The aim of this study was to evaluate antibiotic resistance of pathogens isolated from urine cultures of patients referred to Yazd Central Laboratory (located in Yazd, Iran). Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted on subjects who were referred to the Central Laboratory in Yazd for urine culture testing. The data was collected from all positive urine cultures. A frequency distribution table was used for descriptive statistics; Chi-square test was used to compare subgroups. Data were analyzed using Stata software version 12 (Stata Corp LP, College Station, Texas). Results: A total of 2014 samples of positive urine cultures were obtained during 2012-2013. Of these, 1875 (88.6) samples were from females and 229 (11.4) samples were from males. The prevalence of infection was most common in the age group of 50 years or older, with 594 (29.5) cases. E. coli and Klebsiella represented 68 and 10.2 of the cases, respectively; these bacterial strains were the most prevalent in patients. The strongest antibiotic resistance in patients was towards the antibiotic ampicillin. For most of the antibiotics, the antibiotic resistance was significantly greater in males compared to females (P<0.05). Conclusion: Resistance to antibiotics in all investigated bacteria strains was common. For both sexes, the highest antibiotic resistance occurred in patients less than 50 years of age; the resistance was towards ampicillin. For the group over 50 years of age, the greatest antibiotic resistance was towards ceftizoxime. The subject of antibiotic resistance, therefore, should be studied in further detail since antibiotic resistance has great impact on health issues, such as UTIs.