Evaluation of the understanding of antibiotic resistance among Malaysian pharmacy students at public universities: An exploratory study

Abstract

This survey reveals that final-year pharmacy students at Malaysian public universities have a relatively good understanding of antibiotic resistance. However, their attitudes did not strongly correlate to their knowledge.

The knowledge, attitude and practice of health practitioners towards antibiotic prescribing and resistance in developing countries—A systematic review

“…Nevertheless, considering the two approaches most commonly reported, knowledge on antibiotic use could be considered to range from being fairly good to good. For example, the overall proportion of respondents with right answers to all knowledge questions was 80.9% in two studies, whereas 60.2% of respondents were reported to have a knowledge score above the midpoint of the scale in two studies . All the other studies, which provided only the mean knowledge score of their participants, reported that they were higher than the respective midpoints of their scales …”

“…The systematic search resulted in a total of 384 papers, with 345 papers left after removing duplicates, and 28 relevant papers upon reviewing titles and abstracts. Of these, 15 articles fulfilled our inclusion criteria upon full‐text review (Figure ), according to the United Nations, World Economic Situation and Prospects: four from Africa (two from East Africa: Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, one from North Africa: Egypt and one from West Africa: The Gambia); nine from Asia (three from East Asia: Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, four from South Asia: Bangladesh, India and two from Western Asia: Saudi Arabia); and two from Latin America and the Caribbean (one from the Caribbean: West Indies and one from South America: Peru). All the studies were cross‐sectional, 13 were quantitative studies using questionnaires, and two were qualitative studies.…”

“…Nine studies reported on participants’ awareness and knowledge on antibiotics . Reported knowledge on antibiotics was either based on correct answers to questions that assessed participants’ knowledge or based on self‐assessment.…”

“…Three of the studies reported mean score of knowledge as 5.9 of 10 (SD ± 1.3), 6.0 of 7.0 (SD ± 1.3) and 4.7 of 7 (SD ± 1.29) . Thriemer et al reported a proportion of 60.9% of the respondents had a score of more than 4.0 of 8.0, and Rajiah et al reported 59.5% of the respondents had a “good understanding” of antibiotic use, based on a score of 8.0 or more points of 15.0. Thus, overall, a proportion of 60.2% had a knowledge score of more than half of the knowledge score scale .…”

“…Thriemer et al reported a proportion of 60.9% of the respondents had a score of more than 4.0 of 8.0, and Rajiah et al reported 59.5% of the respondents had a “good understanding” of antibiotic use, based on a score of 8.0 or more points of 15.0. Thus, overall, a proportion of 60.2% had a knowledge score of more than half of the knowledge score scale . Based on self‐assessment, Tennant et al reported that the participants thought their knowledge of antibiotics and resistance was good (29%%), average (48%) and poor (11%), and Chandy et al reported that respondents were “well versed in infections and antibiotics, but needed continuing education updates”.…”