4.2 Use of antibiotics among the respondents
In terms of the past personal antibiotics use, most of the respondents
took antibiotics in the last 6 months to more than a year ago.
Furthermore, almost all the respondents (95.28%) procured antibiotics
with medical prescriptions from a medical store or pharmacy (94.34%)
instead of using leftover antibiotics (1.89%). They also received
proper advice given by healthcare professionals (73.58%). These
findings suggested that our students are more adhering to the health
policies and aware of the importance of getting antibiotic with a
prescription. As compared to a study done by Scaioli et al., 77.6% of
their respondents claimed to get antibiotics without medical
prescription, and 17.7% of them took the leftovers antibiotics without
doctor’s advice.18 Additionally, recent studies
revealed that the leftover antibiotics will prone the medical students
to be predisposed to self-medication of antibiotics
(SMA).19-21 Subsequently, these might attribute to
worsen infections, allergic reactions and even the development of AR.