Public knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding antibiotic use in Kosovo

Abstract

Background:Antimicrobial resistance is becoming a major public health challenge worldwide, caused primarily by the misuse of antibiotics. Antibiotic use is closely related to the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of a population.Objective:The objective of this study was to assess the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices about antibiotic use among the general public in Kosovo.Methods:A cross-sectional face-to-face survey was carried out with a sample of 811 randomly selected Kosovo residents. The methodology used for this survey was based on the European Commission Eurobarometer survey on antimicrobial resistance.Results:More than half of respondents (58.7%) have used antibiotics during the past year. A quarter of respondents consumed antibiotics without a medical prescription. The most common reasons for usage were flu (23.8%), followed by sore throat (20.2%), cold (13%) and common cold (7.6%). 42.5% of respondents think that antibiotics are effective against viral infections. Almost half of respondents (46.7%) received information about the unnecessary use of antibiotics and 32.5% of them report having changed their views and behaviours after receiving this information. Health care workers were identified as the most trustworthy source of information on antibiotic use (67.2%).Conclusion:These results provide quantitative baseline data on Kosovar knowledge, attitudes and practice regarding the use of antibiotic. These findings have potential to empower educational campaigns to promote the prudent use of antibiotics in both community and health care settings.

Knowledge and Expectations on Antibiotic Use among Older Adults in Malaysia: A Cross-Sectional Survey

“…Only a small proportion (1.5%) of the respondents received antibiotics without physician consultation. This self-medication rate was comparatively much lower than those reported in other studies conducted among adults, which were 5.3% to 20.4% in Malaysia [35,[39][40][41]44], and 22.4% to 76.6% in other countries [42,43,[45][46][47][48][49], in which respondents obtained antibiotics from the pharmacy without prescriptions, followed by antibiotics shared by family or friends, and purchased from clinics without consultation. A systematic review reported that age is not a strong determinant in self-medication with antibiotics [50]; therefore, the lower rate of self-medication in this study might not be due to subject selection for elderly population.…”

Practices About Antibiotic Use Among Urban Residents: A Cross-Sectional Survey in Rufisque, Senegal

“…In this study, 75% of people had taken an antibiotic treatment in the last 12 months preceding the survey. This prevalence was comparable to that found in Kuwait (72.8%) [24], while it was higher than those found in Ethiopia (46.7%) [25] and Kosovo (58.7%) [26].…”

“…Then 5% reused antibiotics leftover from their previous prescription. This proportion was 70.4% in Kosovo [26]. Lastly, 2% sourced antibiotics from the illicit market.…”

Surveys of knowledge and awareness of antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance in general population: A systematic review

“…The majority of the studies (20 studies) were conducted as single-country studies while 2 studies were multi-country studies at global and regional levels [1,4]. Among the 20 singlecountry studies, 8 studies were conducted at national level [6,12,13,14,15,16,17,18] while the remaining 12 studies were conducted at sub-national level [11,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29]. It should be noted that no study was conducted in the African region.…”