Abstract
For the majority of surgeries, cefazolin is the drug of choice for prophylaxis because it is extensively studied and has a proven efficacy. The present study was a retrospective study that was conducted in a hospital in Riyadh province to describe the appropriateness of using cefazolin as a surgical prophylaxis antibiotic among the patients who had a surgery in the hospital. Most of the patients in the present study received incorrect dose of cefazolin (95.65%). More than 39% of the patients received cefazolin for 3 days and only 8.70% of the patients received appropriate duration. The present study showed that the adherence to the surgical antibiotic prophylaxis guideline was low and demonstrated a wide gap between the recommendations of the international and national guideline and hospital practice. So, many interventions including educational interventions are needed to improve the use of antibiotic as recommended by the guidelines.