Abstract

Objective: To determine the etiologic agent, antibiotic susceptibility patterns and possible risk factors among patients who had ear infection. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between February 2014 and June 2014 at the University of Gondar Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia among patients with ear discharge. Data were collected by using a semi-structured questionnaire. Ear discharge was inoculated on blood agar, chocolate agar and MacConkey agar plates. Standard procedures were used for identification of etiologic agents. Antibiotic susceptibility tests were performed on MuellerHinton agar. Data were entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 20 and P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Out of 167 patients, 97 (58.1%) were males. The mean age of the study participants was 23.3 years with the age ranging form 4 months to 78 years. Among the 167 study participants with ear discharge, 154 (92.2%) were showed bacterial growth. Gram-negative bacteria were commonly isolated from 100 (58.5%) participants. Of the 167 ear infection cases, 68.9% and 31.1% were from patients with chronic and acute otitis media, respectively. A total of 125 (73.1%) and 46 (24.9%) bacterial isolates were recovered from patients with chronic otitis media and acute otits media, respectively. The most commonly isolated Grampositive bacterium was Staphylococcus aureus [43 (25.1%)]. Among the Gram-negative isolates, Proteus species [43 (25.1%)] were the most common isolate. Age and sex had statically significant association with ear infection (P = 0.013). Multidrug resistances were observed in 100% and 88.4% Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial isolates, respectively. Conclusions: The prevalence of Gram-negative bacteria was high. Staphylococcus aureus, Proteus and Pseudomonas species were the most predominant. Alarmingly high rates of multiple drug resistance to majority of the commonly used antimicrobial agents were found. Therefore, treatment of ear infection should be based on culture and susceptibility test.

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