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Public Beliefs about Antibiotics, Infection and Resistance: A Qualitative Study

We aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of public views and ways of talking about antibiotics. Four focus groups were held with members of the public. In addition, 39 households were recruited and interviews, diaries of medicine taking, diaries of any contact with medication were used to explore...

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Autores principales: Norris, Pauline, Chamberlain, Kerry, Dew, Kevin, Gabe, Jonathan, Hodgetts, Darrin, Madden, Helen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4790263/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27029314
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics2040465
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author Norris, Pauline
Chamberlain, Kerry
Dew, Kevin
Gabe, Jonathan
Hodgetts, Darrin
Madden, Helen
author_facet Norris, Pauline
Chamberlain, Kerry
Dew, Kevin
Gabe, Jonathan
Hodgetts, Darrin
Madden, Helen
author_sort Norris, Pauline
collection PubMed
description We aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of public views and ways of talking about antibiotics. Four focus groups were held with members of the public. In addition, 39 households were recruited and interviews, diaries of medicine taking, diaries of any contact with medication were used to explore understanding and use of medication. Discussions related to antibiotics were identified and analyzed. Participants in this study were worried about adverse effects of antibiotics, particularly for recurrent infections. Some were concerned that antibiotics upset the body’s “balance”, and many used strategies to try to prevent and treat infections without antibiotics. They rarely used military metaphors about infection (e.g., describing bacteria as invading armies) but instead spoke of clearing infections. They had little understanding of the concept of antibiotic resistance but they thought that over-using antibiotics was unwise because it would reduce their future effectiveness. Previous studies tend to focus on problems such as lack of knowledge, or belief in the curative powers of antibiotics for viral illness, and neglect the concerns that people have about antibiotics, and the fact that many people try to avoid them. We suggest that these concerns about antibiotics form a resource for educating patients, for health promotion and social marketing strategies.
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spelling pubmed-47902632016-03-24 Public Beliefs about Antibiotics, Infection and Resistance: A Qualitative Study Norris, Pauline Chamberlain, Kerry Dew, Kevin Gabe, Jonathan Hodgetts, Darrin Madden, Helen Antibiotics (Basel) Article We aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of public views and ways of talking about antibiotics. Four focus groups were held with members of the public. In addition, 39 households were recruited and interviews, diaries of medicine taking, diaries of any contact with medication were used to explore understanding and use of medication. Discussions related to antibiotics were identified and analyzed. Participants in this study were worried about adverse effects of antibiotics, particularly for recurrent infections. Some were concerned that antibiotics upset the body’s “balance”, and many used strategies to try to prevent and treat infections without antibiotics. They rarely used military metaphors about infection (e.g., describing bacteria as invading armies) but instead spoke of clearing infections. They had little understanding of the concept of antibiotic resistance but they thought that over-using antibiotics was unwise because it would reduce their future effectiveness. Previous studies tend to focus on problems such as lack of knowledge, or belief in the curative powers of antibiotics for viral illness, and neglect the concerns that people have about antibiotics, and the fact that many people try to avoid them. We suggest that these concerns about antibiotics form a resource for educating patients, for health promotion and social marketing strategies. MDPI 2013-11-05 /pmc/articles/PMC4790263/ /pubmed/27029314 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics2040465 Text en © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Norris, Pauline
Chamberlain, Kerry
Dew, Kevin
Gabe, Jonathan
Hodgetts, Darrin
Madden, Helen
Public Beliefs about Antibiotics, Infection and Resistance: A Qualitative Study
title Public Beliefs about Antibiotics, Infection and Resistance: A Qualitative Study
title_full Public Beliefs about Antibiotics, Infection and Resistance: A Qualitative Study
title_fullStr Public Beliefs about Antibiotics, Infection and Resistance: A Qualitative Study
title_full_unstemmed Public Beliefs about Antibiotics, Infection and Resistance: A Qualitative Study
title_short Public Beliefs about Antibiotics, Infection and Resistance: A Qualitative Study
title_sort public beliefs about antibiotics, infection and resistance: a qualitative study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4790263/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27029314
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics2040465
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