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Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance: Public Awareness Survey in the Republic of Cyprus

We aimed to assess the knowledge and understanding of antibiotic use and resistance in the general population of Cyprus, in order to inform future antibiotic awareness campaigns with local evidence. Cross-sectional survey following the methodology of the “Antibiotic resistance: Multi-country public...

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Autores principales: Michaelidou, Mikaela, Karageorgos, Spyridon A., Tsioutis, Constantinos
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7692346/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33143207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9110759
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author Michaelidou, Mikaela
Karageorgos, Spyridon A.
Tsioutis, Constantinos
author_facet Michaelidou, Mikaela
Karageorgos, Spyridon A.
Tsioutis, Constantinos
author_sort Michaelidou, Mikaela
collection PubMed
description We aimed to assess the knowledge and understanding of antibiotic use and resistance in the general population of Cyprus, in order to inform future antibiotic awareness campaigns with local evidence. Cross-sectional survey following the methodology of the “Antibiotic resistance: Multi-country public awareness survey” of the World Health Organization, during December 2019–January 2020. A total of 614 respondents participated: 64.3% were female and most were aged 35–44 years (33.2%) or 25–34 years (31.8%). One-third had used antibiotics >1 year ago and 91.6% reported receiving advice on appropriate use from a medical professional. Despite high awareness on correct use of antibiotics, lack of knowledge was noted for specific indications, where approximately one-third believed that viral infections respond to antibiotics and 70.7% lack understanding of how antibiotic resistance develops. Higher education graduates exhibited significantly higher knowledge rates. As high as 72.3% were informed about “antibiotic resistant bacteria” from healthcare professionals or social media. Most agreed on the usefulness of most suggested actions to address antibiotic resistance, with higher proportions acknowledging the role of prescribers. Up to 47% could not identify their role in decreasing antibiotic resistance. Our study provides local evidence to inform future efforts in a country characterized by high antibiotic consumption rates.
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spelling pubmed-76923462020-11-28 Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance: Public Awareness Survey in the Republic of Cyprus Michaelidou, Mikaela Karageorgos, Spyridon A. Tsioutis, Constantinos Antibiotics (Basel) Article We aimed to assess the knowledge and understanding of antibiotic use and resistance in the general population of Cyprus, in order to inform future antibiotic awareness campaigns with local evidence. Cross-sectional survey following the methodology of the “Antibiotic resistance: Multi-country public awareness survey” of the World Health Organization, during December 2019–January 2020. A total of 614 respondents participated: 64.3% were female and most were aged 35–44 years (33.2%) or 25–34 years (31.8%). One-third had used antibiotics >1 year ago and 91.6% reported receiving advice on appropriate use from a medical professional. Despite high awareness on correct use of antibiotics, lack of knowledge was noted for specific indications, where approximately one-third believed that viral infections respond to antibiotics and 70.7% lack understanding of how antibiotic resistance develops. Higher education graduates exhibited significantly higher knowledge rates. As high as 72.3% were informed about “antibiotic resistant bacteria” from healthcare professionals or social media. Most agreed on the usefulness of most suggested actions to address antibiotic resistance, with higher proportions acknowledging the role of prescribers. Up to 47% could not identify their role in decreasing antibiotic resistance. Our study provides local evidence to inform future efforts in a country characterized by high antibiotic consumption rates. MDPI 2020-10-30 /pmc/articles/PMC7692346/ /pubmed/33143207 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9110759 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Michaelidou, Mikaela
Karageorgos, Spyridon A.
Tsioutis, Constantinos
Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance: Public Awareness Survey in the Republic of Cyprus
title Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance: Public Awareness Survey in the Republic of Cyprus
title_full Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance: Public Awareness Survey in the Republic of Cyprus
title_fullStr Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance: Public Awareness Survey in the Republic of Cyprus
title_full_unstemmed Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance: Public Awareness Survey in the Republic of Cyprus
title_short Antibiotic Use and Antibiotic Resistance: Public Awareness Survey in the Republic of Cyprus
title_sort antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance: public awareness survey in the republic of cyprus
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7692346/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33143207
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9110759
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