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ASSESSMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES REGARDING ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE AMONG NON-MEDICAL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN RAWALPINDI

Dr. Shumaila Humayun

Background: Various practices regarding antibiotic use in community have been postulated to be related to the development of resistant strains and an effort is made to determine this relationship in non-medical university students. Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge attitude and practices regarding antibiotics and antibiotic resistance among non-medical university students in Rawalpindi. Study Design: A Cross- sectional study. Place and Duration: In non- medical university students of Foundation University Rawalpindi campus for a duration of six months from January to June 2019. Methods: Participants were assessed through a face-to-face survey. Convenient sampling technique was used and a total of 400 non-medical students of Foundation University Rawalpindi campus, 210 females and 190 males, from January to May, 2019, were included for this study. A pretested structured questionnaire was filled by all the respondents after taking written informed consent. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 21.Results: Out of 400 respondents, 43.7% showed to have correct knowledge regarding antibiotics while 52.3% were either unaware or had incorrect knowledge. Respondents with correct knowledge regarding antibiotic resistance were 36.5% while respondents who were unaware or had incorrect knowledge were 43.5%. Results assessing attitude of respondents regarding antibiotic use depicts that 51.5% had positive attitude. About 62.8% observed incorrect practices regarding antibiotic use. Conclusion: From our study we concluded that despite having poor knowledge about the use of antibiotics and problems of antibiotic resistancethe study respondents had positive attitude but manyincorrect practices in regards to the antibiotic use. This indicates that the increase in awareness regarding the topic can lead to increase in correct practices among them. Keywords; antibiotics, antibiotic resistance, convenientsampling, cross-sectional

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