WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Unegbu Nnachetam Valentine, Okoronkwo Christopher*, Ike Christian Chukwuemeka, Ogwuegbu Happiness and Okakpu Lilian Obianuju

ABSTRACT

Background and objective: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is the most common medical complications of pregnancy. They are associated with multiplication of organisms in the urinary tract. This study is designed to investigate the prevalence and antibacterial resistance of bacteria isolated from urinary tract infection of pregnant women attending Isuochi general hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Isuochi general hospital from September 2022 to December 2022. A semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect the socio-demographic characteristics of patients. Urine specimens were collected from 80 pregnant women. Subsequent identification was done based on morphology and biochemical tests. Susceptibility pattern of the isolates were done using the disk diffusion method. Result: The prevalence of urinary tract infection was 54(68%). E coli was the most prevalent pathogen 25(46.3%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus 14(26%), followed by Klebsiella spp 9(16.7%) and then Pseudomonas aeruginosa 6(11.1%) and there was statistical significance (p=0.04) among the organisms isolated. S. aureus was sensitive to levofloxacin, gentamicin, erythromycin, nitrofurantoin and streptomycin which made it the highest sensitive organism to these antibiotics, followed by E. coli which was sensitive to nitrofurantoin, augmentin, and ciprofloxacin. Klebsiella spp was sensitive to ciprofloxacin while Pseudomonas aeruginosa was sensitive to ciprofloxacin. Conclusions: The prevalence rate of UTI in pregnant women in this study was very high with E.coli being the most prevalent pathogen. Majority of the isolated organisms were resistant to the antibiotics used in this study. It is therefore recommended that pregnant should start attending antenatal clinic from the first trimester and that routine antibiotic susceptibility test should be performed on them to detect and eliminate drug resistant bacteria.