Examine the Growing Problem of Antibiotic Resistance and its impact on Public Health
Keywords:
antibiotic resistance, public health, Saudi Arabia, university students, antibiotic abuse, awareness, misuse, full course of treatment, expired medications, cross-sectional analytic approachAbstract
Antibiotic resistance has been rising rapidly in recent years, with Saudi Arabia having thehighest frequency of resistant infections in the Gulf Region. Despite legal restrictions on antibioticdistribution, their misuse remains widespread. The purpose of this research was to examine how muchSaudi university students know about antibiotic resistance and how often they properly utilize antibiotics.The research method was a cross-sectional analytic approach. Bachelor students' perspectives onantibiotic resistance and antibiotic usage were gathered using a self-administered survey. To recruit thenecessary 825 individuals, a two-stage stratified cluster sampling procedure was used. Seventy-fivepercent or more of college students knew about antibiotic resistance (95 confidence interval [CI]72.09–77.98), and 54.67 percent [CI] 51.26–58.03 percent knew about antibiotic resistance as a publichealth concern. The most prevalent types of antibiotic abuse were not completing the full course oftreatment or taking medications that had expired (95 CI 63.63 - 70.04). Knowing about antibioticresistance reduced the likelihood that students would abuse antibiotics by 27.96 percent (OR = 0.7204, p= 0.0642). One's odds of misusing antibiotics drops by 51.32 percent if one is aware that antibioticresistance is a public health concern (OR = 0.4868, p 0.0001). Antibiotic abuse decreases when peopleare aware of the problem of antibiotic resistance. More effort should be put into spreading awarenessabout the dangers of antibiotic overuse and the rise of antibiotic resistance.References
Khilnani, Gurudas & Khilnani, Ajeet Kumar. (2019). Antibiotic Resistance. 10.5281/zenodo.5765831.
Bonna, Atia & Pavel, Shahed & Ferdous, Jannatul & Khan, Sabbir & Ali, Mohammad. (2022). Antibiotic Resistance: An Increasingly Threatening but Neglected Public Health Challenge in Bangladesh. International Journal of Surgery Open. 10.1016/j.ijso.2022.100581.
Nadgir, Chinmayee & Biswas, Dalia. (2023). Antibiotic Resistance and Its Impact on Disease Management. Cureus. 15. 10.7759/cureus.38251.
Bansal, O. (2022). IMPACT OF ANTIBIOTICS ON HUMAN AND ENVIRONMENT. 10. 35125-35129.
Ferri, Maurizio & Ranucci, Elena & Romagnoli, Paola & Giaccone, Valerio. (2015). Antimicrobial Resistance: A Global Emerging Threat to Public Health Systems. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition. 57. 10.1080/10408398.2015.1077192.
aidi SF, Alotaibi R, Nagro A, et al. Knowledge and attitude towards antibiotic usage: A questionnaire-based survey among pre-professional students at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences on Jeddah Campus, Saudi Arabia. Pharmacy (Basel) 2020; 8(1): 5.
Alghadeer S, Aljuaydi K, Babelghaith S, Alhammad A, Alarifi MN. Self-medication with antibiotics in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Pharm J 2018; 26(5): 719-24.
Al-Shibani N, Hamed A, Labban N, Al-Kattan R, Al-Otaibi H, Alfadda S. Knowledge, attitude and practice of antibiotic use and misuse among adults in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Med J 2017; 38(10): 1038-44.
AboAlSamh A, Alhussain A, Alanazi N, Alahmari R, Shaheen N, Adlan A. Dental students’ knowledge and attitudes towards antibiotic prescribing guidelines in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Pharmacy (Basel) 2018; 6(2): 42.
World Health Organization. Antibiotic Resistance: Multi-country public awareness survey [Internet]. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO Available from: https://www.who.int/drugresistance/documents/baselinesurveynov2015/en/
Higuita-Gutiérrez LF, Roncancio Villamil GE, Jiménez Quiceno JN. Knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding antibiotic use and resistance among medical students in Colombia: A cross-sectional descriptive study. BMC Public Health 2020; 20(1): 1861.
Zucco R, Lavano F, Anfosso R, Bianco A, Pileggi C, Pavia M. Internet and social media use for antibiotic-related information seeking: Findings from a survey among adult population in Italy. Int J Med Inform 2018; 111: 131-9.
Bell BG, Schellevis F, Stobberingh E, Goossens H, Pringle M. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of antibiotic consumption on antibiotic resistance. BMC Infect Dis 2014; 14(1): 13.
Van Boeckel TP, Gandra S, Ashok A, et al. Global antibiotic consumption 2000 to 2010: An analysis of national pharmaceutical sales data. Lancet Infect Dis 2014; 14(8): 742-50.
Hawking MK, Lecky DM, Touboul Lundgren P, et al. Attitudes and behaviours of adolescents towards antibiotics and self-care for respiratory tract infections: A qualitative study. BMJ Open 2017; 7(5): e015308.
This work is licensed under a 