4.5 Attitudes, perception and practice towards antibiotics use
and its resistance
Around 70 to 85% of our respondents agree that “pharmaceutical
companies should develop new antibiotic” and “government should give
reward to these developments”. US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
summarized that “only one-tenth of new antibiotics being discovered in
the last 35 years compared with the previous 35
years”.29 This slow development is most likely due to
the inadequate financial support given to the pharmaceutical companies
to carry out the research, hence, they have stopped the research
progress and only aimed at promoting the sales of drugs. In consistent
with the pipeline of new drug running dry, AR has limited the options
available in treating the life-threatening infection caused by
antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Therefore, it is crucial for the
prescriber to be more mindful in selecting appropriate antibiotics to
treat bacterial infections. During their undergraduate level,
outcome-based education (OBE) can be implemented into their preclinical
phase. This is to ensure the medical graduates are fit for practice and
prescribing appropriate antibiotics.
Furthermore, according to a study done by Ab Halim et al., more than
half of the respondents are expecting the doctor to prescribe
antibiotics even if it is not necessary.11 Besides, Ab
Rahman et al., also claimed that the presence of high antibiotics
prescribing rate among the primary care settings (87%) and most of them
were used to treat unnecessary conditions such as URTI (46.2%), cold
and flu.15 It had been established that these
unnecessary prescribing was most likely due to overly high expectations
and pressure from patients or even due to financial incentives for the
general practitioners. Similarly, the current study showed that almost
all the respondents understood the antibiotics should only be given when
necessary.
Further, more than half of our respondents disagree that medical experts
will solve the problem of antibiotic resistance before it becomes too
serious. Conversely, based on the WHO multi-country survey, 64% of them
agreed with the statement above.27 This finding
revealed that our respondents are less aware of their role in tackling
with this issue. Perhaps, the prescriber should be nurtured with the
sense of responsibility of stopping the emergence of antibiotic
resistance as they play a major role in prescribing
antibiotics.31 Instead of only increase the knowledge
of antibiotic and its resistance among the students, it is also
important to change their attitude and perception towards their role and
responsibility in accordance with the development of AR.
Despite of the good overall theoretical knowledge, there are still a
minority of the final year medical students who were practicing
incorrect behaviours concerning the antibiotics consumption. In
healthcare field, we shall not compromise even a single mistake because
every action we take is concerning the safety of the patient. The
undergraduate students are at the stage of the steppingstone whereby
they need to be properly educated and well trained regarding the
appropriate usage of antibiotics as they play a vital role in treating
various illnesses in future days. Hence, a more comprehensive
understanding of antibiotic resistance and the knowledge of the use and
misuse of the antibiotics are absolutely inevitable for undergraduate
medical students.